Uttar Pradesh which is the 5th largest state economy in the country has recently declared to free up its agriculture market. Thus, allowing the farmers to sell from their homes, while earning good price for their produce by skipping the wholesale market.
Not to forget that UP, which depends heavily on agriculture, is embracing decentralisation in the farm sector by amending a more than 5 decade old law governing wholesale markets or mandis. The second good news is that, as per an official statement, the state has cleared amendments to the UP Krishi Utpadan Mandi Adhiniyam of 1964 through an ordinance.
According to few analysts, the opening up of the market for agricultural produce will help in ensuring a better access to raw materials for the food processing industry amid covid-19 lockdown. As per a statement by UP government, exclusion of 46 fruits & vegetables from the exclusive purview of mandis has been done so as to avoid the trading curbs. The list of those fruits and vegetables include apple, banana, mango, water melon, pomegranate, green pea, radish, bitter gourd and lady’s finger.
How will the move benefit UP farmers?
Now, with this, the sale of these fruits and vegetables can be procured from farmers in the villages which can easily be traded in the state without any restrictions," the statement further said. Farmers will be free from the wholesale market and will no longer have to pay any mandi tax that comes to around Rs 125 crore in a year.
It will effectively eliminate the role of middlemen. Thereby, allowing farmers to sell their produce directly to consumers and traders outside the mandi yard.
However, the farmers will have to pay a charge for using infrastructure if they chose to sell in mandis.
Many experts believed that lifting trading curbs on farm produce was the need of the hour as harvest season has just ended.
PM Narendra Modi has recently highlighted in a meeting on farm sector reforms that there is a need to quickly free up the farm produce market. Other issues like farm produce marketing, management of marketable surplus, freeing agriculture sector of various restrictions and access of farmers to institutional credit were also discussed.
