बाज़ार संपर्क

e-NAM is an online trading platform that connects APMC mandis across states into one market. Produce arriving at an integrated mandi is assayed for quality, and traders — including traders outside your district — bid for it online, with payment made directly to the farmer's bank account. The value of this is straightforward: more bidders normally means a better price, and a recorded quality assay means you are paid for grade rather than argued down on it. Its usefulness to you depends on whether your local mandi is integrated with e-NAM, which is the first thing to check.

This scheme funds the creation of new FPOs and supports them through their first several years, with a Cluster Based Business Organisation providing professional handholding, management cost support, and access to an equity grant and credit guarantee facility. An FPO lets small farmers buy inputs in bulk and sell as a single large lot, which is the only realistic way a two-acre farmer gets the price a fifty-acre farmer gets. The trade-off is that an FPO is a company with directors, accounts and compliance obligations — which is precisely why the scheme pays for professional support rather than only handing over money.