AGRICULTURE MARKETING INFRASTRUCTURE (AMI)

"Emerging scope & challenges for Institutional finance"

- Pravindra Kumar

Agriculture is one of the most critical sectors of the Indian economy that not only drives the growth and development of agriculture and allied sectors directly but also affects the well being of rural people at large, their prosperity and employment and also forms an important resource base for a number of agro-based industries and agro-services. While the food security constantly augmented though various plan periods by strategic planning and mission mode schemes has largely been achieved, but the fulcrum of monetising the farmers and their economic well being is still a challenge.

An efficient, competitive and accessible market with adequate post-harvest and marketing infrastructure can potentially achieve its core objective of generating net positive returns to the producer. In the light of the Government's vision to double farmers' income by 2022, it entails an urgent need for putting in place better farmermarket linkages through developing and upgrading Gramin Haats as Gramin Agricultural Markets (GrAMs) and declaring warehouses/cold storages as market sub-yards , promoting scales of economy in production & post-production activities through active participation of Farmer Producer Organizations, squeezing food supply chain through direct marketing in every forms of wholesale and retails (farmer consumer market), symmetrising market information, promoting market driven production through a demand based market intelligence and price forecasting system and promoting quality management of farmers' produce.

Agricultural Marketing Infrastructure