The state government of Maharashtra is now relaxing norms for the creation of alternative marketing channels to allow companies to purchase directly from farmers, bypassing intermediaries. This boost for direct retail sales of fruits and vegetables as against the traditional system, wherein farmers sell produce to traders in Agricultural Produce Marketing Committees (APMCs), will ensure stronger farm-to-fork linkages, better pricing for producers and lower rates for consumers.
The state government has already amended the Maharashtra Agricultural Produce Marketing (Development and Regulation) Act, 1964. This enables e-marketing of agricultural produce and establishment of virtual markets, shifting the burden of levy from producers to purchasers and restricting the jurisdiction of the APMC to only the market premises instead of the entire administrative division.
“We plan to take the number of direct marketing licences to 1,000,” an official from the state agriculture marketing department said, adding that this would ensure that these marketing channels “were a strong option to traditional APMCs”.
At present, Maharashtra has around 150 direct marketing licences with an annual turnover of Rs15 billion. “However, some of these licencees are non-functional, while a few others prefer to purchase from traders instead of from the farmers as was originally envisaged,” the official admitted. The state also has around 840 farmer-producer organisations, wherein agriculturists come together to sell their produce.
“We do not plan to dismantle these APMCs as this has been created over the years. The solution lies in creating an alternative to them,” the official said, adding that as part of measures to ensure ease of doing business for these direct marketing licencees, bank guarantees for a state-wide licence will be reduced to just Rs500,000 from Rs1.5 million earlier. The amount of guarantees required for various revenue divisions has also been brought down along with the licence fees.
“This will help purchase agricultural commodities from farmers without taking the APMC route,” noted an official from the state directorate of marketing, adding that the conventional monopolistic regime was being gradually dismantled. The state also plans to launch online licensing.
Source: dnaindia.com