Alternative marketing channels

Context: COVID has highlighted fault lines in current agricultural marketing system. There is a need for alternative marketing channels. 

Impact due to COVID

• Challenging food security: Disrupted transport, Social distancing avoided traders and labourers to work in Mandis, faltering supplies through APMC.
•  “Too big to fail” APMC’s false belief: COVID has exposed underlying issues related to sanitation, certification and traceability.

Alternative marketing Solutions

Immediate Solution:

• Promotion of FPOs: Connecting FPOs to cooperative housing societies to offer uninterrupted food supplies and also stabilized earning for farmers.

Intermediate Solution:

• Identify successful experiments: Promote Direct marketing exercises, strengthen backward and forward linkages to be scaled across states.

• Reformed APMC: Staggered arrival by commodity groups to reduce overcrowding and reduce labour requirement. (For e.g. “Pune pattern” wherein vegetables and fruits are received on alternate days) 

• Sanitisation and Disinfection: Provisioning of hand washing facilities along with gloves and masks. Allowing only wholesalers and retailers to enter APMC.

• Integrating Negotiable Warehousing Receipts (e-NWRs) to e-NAM: This will help farmers to get best prices by cross country accessibility.

• Unified command: individualistic strategies will provide leeway for discretion to local authorities and in turn disrupts supply chain.

Long term Solution:

• Maintenance of sanitary and phytosanitary measures, adherence to Maximum Residue Limit (MRL), strengthening food handling protocols, capacity building of farmers through certifications and generating awareness among consumers regarding nutrition and safe consumption.