Agricultural marketing reforms are imperative for addressing market inefficiencies and boosting farm incomes. Analyse.

Agriculture marketing refer to all services involved in taking farm produce from farm to the fork Imperative for Agri marketing reforms: (1) Addressing market inefficiencies: - Cartelisation of middlemen in APMCs - Poor use of technology in desking, grading, costing etc by hand (2) Leakage effect of taxes (upto 10-15%) (3) Spatial variation in APMCs - One every 116 sq km in Rajasthan Vs One every 1120 sq km in Naphalaya (4) Bias towards certain crops for halalbeat

II Boosting farm incomes: (1) Participation of exporters and processors in direct purchase will increase income (2) Integration with eNAMs will improve price discovery (3) Digital exposure to customers will eliminate middlemen related losses via Fresh Old: delivers farmer - customer (4) Investment in technology will improve efficiency of operations via Blockchain (5) Restrictive acts like essential commodities artificially meets quit/over supply (6) Decentralized procurement will reduce post harvest losses via GrAMS or a step to the right direction

Way forward: - Adoption of Model APMC Act 2017 by states - Be introducing 3 farm laws with consultation of farmer bodies - Increasing density of APMCs via NCOP 2019 recommended 41,000 APMCs Vs present 2500 - Improving digital and financial literacy of farmers to use eNAM - Investing in GrAM Haats As John F. Kennedy said, farmer is the only one who buys everything at retail, sells everything at wholesale and yet pays freight both ways. We need intervention to remove the within cycle of debt misery.