States told to let farmers sell directly during lockdown

New Delhi | Pune: The Centre has told states that they should allow farmers to sell their produce directly to customers during the lockdown period to make sure that their earnings are not affected by restrictions of the APMC Act. This will help farmers sell their produce with the help of farmer producer organisations (FPO) and cooperatives. So far only Tamil Nadu and Karnataka have agreed to relax APMC Act during the lockdown and allow farmers to sell directly without any intermediary.

“We have been regularly speaking to state governments for limiting APMC Act to mandi premises and allow farmers and cooperatives to sell produce from anywhere in the state without requirement of any license or any statutory permission. This will help farmers sell their produce direct from farm gate without bothering for transportation and other logistic problems,” said a senior agriculture ministry official involved in this dialogue with states.

The official said that government has introduced several modules in its electronic mandi - eNAM to enable the direct marketing of produce through farmer groups and cooperatives. “We have also asked states to give government-owned warehouses the status of mandi so that transactions can happen directly from there. The Niti Aayog has also recommended to transact from accrediated warehouses to decongest mandis,” the official said. However, most states have not implemented Centre’s advisory.