Centre to upgrade rural haats to boost market access to farmers

In a bid to boost market access to farmers, the Centre has drawn up plans to link up about 22,000 rural markets with the National Agriculture Market.

Agriculture Minister Radhamohan Singh said the Union Budget has allocated Rs 2,000 crore for setting up an Agri-Market Development Fund to upgrade rural haats into centres of aggregation.

Inaugurating the two-day 'Agriculture 2022 – Doubling Farmers Income Summit' here, Singh said the Fund would be used to develop infrastructure at 22,000 rural haats and link them with the 585 wholesale markets that were being linked through e-National Agriculture Market (eNAM) project.

"These markets have been called as GrAM (Gramin Agriculture Market)," Singh said adding that the GrAMs will be exempted from regulations of agricultural produce marketing committee.

The new market linkages were expected to also grant small and marginal farmers access to sell his produce on the eNAM platform.

Singh said the Centre's seven-point strategy to double farmers' income focuses on raising crop production, reducing cultivation costs and post-harvest losses, and reform of agriculture markets.

Adding value to farm produce via food processing, risk mitigation through crop insurance and disaster relief, and promotion of allied activities such as horticulture and animal husbandry will be the other areas of intervention, the minister said.

Singh said it was the government's endeavour to make agricultural policies and programs 'income centric' instead of 'production-centric'.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi is scheduled to interact with farmers at the conference today.

The conference comes at a time when the agrarian sector is facing a crisis of crash in prices for farm produce following a record production last year.