What is National Agriculture Market (eNAM)?

About eNAM:

• It is an online trading platformfor agricultural commodities in India.
• It was launched on April 14, 2016, and is completely funded by the Government of India.
• The Small Farmers Agribusiness Consortium (SFAC) acts as the lead agency for implementing e-Nam under the Ministry of Agriculture and Farmer’s Welfare. 
• It aims to create better marketing opportunities for the farmers to sell their productsthrough a competitive and transparent price discovery system, along with an online payment facility for the buyers.
• The NAM portal networks the existing APMC (Agriculture Produce Marketing Committee) / Regulated Marketing Committee (RMC) market yards, sub-market yards, private markets, and other unregulated marketsto unify all the nationwide agricultural markets by creating a central online platform for agricultural commodity price discovery. 
• Features:

o It will enable farmers to showcase their products through their nearby markets and facilitate traders from anywhere to quote prices.

o It provides single-window services for all APMC related services and information. This includes commodity arrivals, quality and prices, buy-and-sell offers, and e-payment settlements directly into farmer’s accounts, among other services.

o Using the eNAM service, licenses for traders, buyers,and commission agentscan be obtained from state-level authorities without any pre-condition of the physical presenceor possession of a shop or premises in the market yard.

o Harmonisation of quality standards of agricultural products and infrastructure for quality testing are made available in every market.

o Provision of Soil Testing Laboratories is provided for the selected mandi (market) in order to facilitate the farmers visiting the mandi.

• e-NAM is designed and implemented to benefitall the stakeholders: farmers, mandis, traders, buyers, Farmer Producer Organization (FPOs), processers, and exporters.
• The benefits to stakeholders include:

o Transparent online trading with enhanced accessibility to the market.

o Real-time price discovery for better and more stable price realization for producers.

o Reduced transaction costs for buyers.

o Availability of information on the e-NAM mobile app about commodity prices.

o The details of the price of commodity sold, along with the quantity, are received through SMS.

o Quality certification.

o More efficient supply chain and warehouse-based sales.

o Online payment directly to the bank accounts of the farmers

Q1: What is APMC (Agriculture Produce Marketing Committee)?

APMC is a statutory market committee constituted by a State Government in respect of trade in certain notified agricultural or horticultural or livestock products, under the Agricultural Produce Market Committee Act issued by that state government.Every APMC is a centralized market place, a meeting point for seller's ,buyers and agent's.A.P.M.C.regulate the wholesale selling of agriculture produce in their defined area of operation.

Source:Farm-gate, inter-mandi e-NAM sales surge in FY24; 18 million farmers, across 1361 mandis on the platform