The Ministry of Agriculture & Farmers Welfare has launched a platform of platforms (PoP) under the National Agriculture Market (e-NAM) scheme along with announcing an equity grant of over Rs 37 crore to 1,018 farmer producer organisations (FPOs).
The equity grant is set to benefit about 3.5 lakh farmers, while the PoP will create a digital ecosystem that will help farmers sell their produce outside their state borders.
The PoP was launched by the Union Agriculture Minister Narendra Singh Tomar at the State Agriculture and Horticulture Ministers’ Conference in Bengaluru, Karnataka, on July 14.
What is PoP?
The National Agriculture Market (eNAM) is an electronic trading portal set up by the government to create a national network of physical mandis that is available online. This portal integrates a platform of service providers such as composite service providers, logistics service providers, quality assurance service providers as a ‘platform of platforms.’
The inclusion of various service providers adds value to the e-NAM platform and gives the users more options to avail services from different quarters.
The PoP brings 41 service providers facilitating various value chain services from different platforms under one umbrella. These services include trading, fintech, warehousing, quality checks, transportation and market information.
Farmers can access the PoP through the e-NAM mobile app, which can be downloaded from Google Play Store.
How will it help farmers
Apart from helping farmers sell their produce outside their states, the PoP will bring in more transparency in business transactions, improving price search mechanism and quality-commensurate price realisation.
Farmers will have direct digital access to multiple markets, buyers and service providers. Through a single window, the PoP will provide farmers, FPOs, traders and other stakeholders access to various goods and services across the agricultural value chain, the ministry said in a statement.
