Electronic trade among local mandis via e-NAM in the works

India plans to enable trades among its otherwise localised farm markets to enhance transparency in the sale and purchase of agricultural output, leveraging the electronic-National Agriculture Market (e-NAM) platform that now hosts 585 large agri-mandis.

The inter-mandi trade will facilitate more competition among trader and more choices to farmers, say agriculture ministry officials. In the past two years, more than 9.3 million farmers have sold 169.40 lakh tonne quantity farm produce worth Rs 43,050 crore through the e-NAM until April 19. Further, about 1lakh traders and 60,000 commission agents have been registered under e-NAM.

“We are trying to add 200 more mandis this year. Also, we want to improve the quality of transaction. By quality, we aim that we should start with inter-mandi trading and put logistics in place,” said Shobhana K Pattanayak, secretary, department of agriculture, cooperation & farmers' welfare.


Pattanayak said it was not enough to trade but the system required to have the whole ecosystem in place – storage facility, transportation, e-payment, and the settlement. “With all these things in place, it will be easy in the next phase to scale up otherwise it will be unsustainable,” Pattanayak said.

Officials in the agriculture ministry say that with inter-state and inter- mandi trade, the trader will get the facility to bid in any of the mandis through online operations. Also, once the mandis were fully integrated, this will help farmers sell their produce bypassing traders and commission agents.

“The states are keen to have inter-mandi and inter-state trading,” said an official.