Union Minister of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare, Narendra Singh Tomar, launched the Platform of Platforms (POP) under the National Agriculture Market (e-NAM) on the sidelines of the State Agriculture and Horticulture Ministers’ Conference in Bengaluru, Karnataka. Equity grant of over Rs 37 crore was also released to 1,018 Farmer Producer Organizations (FPOs) that will benefit about 3.5 lakh farmers.
Besides Tomar, the dignitaries present included the Chief Minister of Karnataka, Basavaraj Bommai, Union Minister of Chemicals & Fertilizers and Health & Family Welfare, Dr. Mansukh Mandaviya, Union Ministers of State for Agriculture and Farmers Welfare, Ms. Shobha Karandlaje and Kailash Choudhary, Agriculture Minister of Karnataka, BC Patil, State Ministers, Union Agriculture Secretary Manoj Ahuja and other senior officers.
With the introduction of POP, farmers will be facilitated to sell the produce outside their state borders. This will increase farmers’ digital access to multiple markets, buyers and service providers and bring transparency in business transactions with the aim of improving price search mechanism and quality commensurate price realisation.
41 service providers from different platforms are covered under POP facilitating various value chain services like trading, quality checks, warehousing, fintech, market information, transportation etc. The PoP will create a digital ecosystem, which will benefit from the expertise of different platforms in different segments of the agricultural value chain.
e-NAM integrates the platform of Service Providers as “Platform of Platforms” which includes Composite Service Providers (Service Providers who provide holistic services for trading of agricultural produce including quality analysis, trading, payment systems and logistics), Logistics Service Provider, Quality Assurance Service Provider, Cleaning, Grading, Sorting & Packaging Service Provider, Warehousing Facility Service Provider, Agricultural Input Service Provider, Technology Enabled Finance & Insurance Service Provider, Information Dissemination Portal (Advisory Services, crop forecasting, weather updates, capacity building for farmers etc.) and other platforms (e-commerce, international agri-business platforms, barter, private market platforms etc.).
