Centre to unveil new market intelligence to tell farmers prices of agri-produce

After ushering in agricultural reforms, Centre plans to unveil a new market intelligence and price information system to empower farmers with the latest rates of farm commodities and make informed choices before selling their produce.

The new market intelligence and price information system (MIIS), mandated under the Farmers’ Produce Trade and Commerce (Promotion and Facilitation) Act, would replace the existing AgMarknet that provides details of commodity arrival and prices sourced from over 3,300 wholesale markets across the country.

“We are setting up an institutional mechanism that would enable farmers to get to know the prices of farm produce at a market near his farm and other markets across the country. This would allow farmers to know the ongoing market prices of his crop,” Agriculture Minister Narendra Singh Tomar said.

The new mechanism would gather information about prices of various crops from diverse sources such as farmer agreements, commodity exchanges, private markets and digital platforms in addition to APMC markets across the country.

Agriculture ministry officials said an artificial intelligence-powered system would analyse the information gathered from diverse sources and disseminate the results through various means to farmers such as call centres, mobile apps, web portals, mass media, social media and private websites.

The new system would also seek to fill in the gaps in the existing mechanism such as gaps in daily reporting from APMC markets, lack of grade-wise data on farm produce, and limited access to transaction data.

“Currently, only 20% of mandis report data daily and there is no major incentive for ensuring 100% compliance,” an official said adding that the new mechanism would ensure 100% data reporting with zero drop-off.

Farmers’ organisations, mostly in Punjab, have been protesting the new farm laws enacted by the Modi government, claiming that the “reforms” would benefit the corporate sector more than the small farmers.

Representatives of 30 farmers’ organisations from Punjab held a seven-hour meeting with Tomar and Food and Consumer Affairs Minister Piyush Goyal on Friday last. The meeting was inconclusive and another round of talks could be held later this month.