AGRICULTURE MARKETING REFORMS- ‘STATE EXTENSION WORKS PROGRAMME’ (A new era in sustainable development of agriculture)

Abstract

The Indian Agricultural sector faces resource constraints, infrastructure constraints, institutional constraints, technology constraints, and policy induced limitations. To achieve sustainable agricultural development, it is essential to combine natural resources, capital resources, institutional resources, and human resources (i.e. to optimally utilize the agricultural resources. Indian agriculture is characterized by lack of strong linkages between production and marketing strategies and inadequate marketing infrastructure. The Ministry of Agriculture, Government of India has reviewed the present system of agricultural marketing in the country and several reforms are being taken in the agriculture-marketing sector.

The main problem that the farmers face is related to the marketing of their produce. Most of the States have ‘Agricultural Marketing Act’ which forces the individual farmers to sell their produce only to designated agencies and do not allow them to sell in the open market. The marketing in Indian Agriculture is something that has been neglected all this while. To make the agricultural marketing system more vibrant and competitive, Government of India had taken the initiative in this regard by setting up of an Inter Ministerial Task Force on Agricultural Marketing Reforms which recommended amendment to the State APMC Act for promotion of direct marketing and contract farming, development of agricultural markets in private and cooperative sectors, stepping up of pledge financing, expansion of future trading to cover all agricultural markets, introduction of negotiable warehouse receipt system and use of information technology to provide market led extension services to the farmers. Agriculture Extension has scarcely made any significant impact on our agriculture, since not more than 25 per cent of Agriculture technology is reaching the farmers.