Agricultural marketing

Story hook

On 27 November 2021, Prime Minister Modi announced the repeal of the three farm laws — the Farmers' Produce Trade & Commerce (Promotion & Facilitation) Act 2020, the Farmers (Empowerment & Protection) Agreement on Price Assurance & Farm Services Act 2020, and the Essential Commodities (Amendment) Act 2020. The repeal followed 378 days of farmer protests on Delhi's borders. The Farm Laws Repeal Bill 2021 cleared both Houses in under four minutes.

The repeal didn't undo the underlying structural problem. India runs 6,946 regulated APMC mandis + 22,941 sub-yards across states. Most farmers within a 15-25 km radius of a mandi catchment. Outside that, commission agents (arhtiyas, dalals) take 2-6% cuts; farmer's gate-price as a share of consumer-rupee on perishables averages ~35-40% (FAO India report 2022).

Meanwhile, e-NAM — the National Agriculture Market portal launched 14 April 2016 — has on-boarded 1,389 mandis across 23 states + 4 UTs. Total trade through e-NAM by Apr 2024: Rs.2.92 lakh crore. Still mostly intra-mandi; inter-mandi trade hovers around 3-5% of total.

For UPSC, this single unit overlaps with Constitution (List II, agriculture markets), Economy (price discovery + middleman), and Polity (cooperative federalism, agitations, repeal politics).

Why this matters for UPSC

GS-III asks about market reform, APMC bypass, e-NAM, farm laws nearly every year. Prelims hits MSP / e-NAM / APMC / FPO at least once each cycle. Mains often: "Discuss why agricultural marketing reforms have stalled". Honest weightage: 2-3 marks Prelims, one 15-mark Mains every year.