current Agricultural marketing in india during covid period, its after effects, best practices during challenging times by APMCs dealing with fruits and vegetables

1. Good Practices in Agricultural
Marketing : Answer to COVID
Challenges
Anil Chauhan
Secretary APMC
Himachal Pradesh State Agricultural Marketing Board
Dt : 04/05/2020
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2. COVID-19 and Indian Agriculture
• First reported case of COVID 19 was in Wuhan
China on 31st December 2019 and WHO
declared it as pandemic on 11 February 2020
• On 30th January India reported it first COVID19
case in Kerala
• India announced Lockdown 1.0 on 23rd March
2020 to avoid spread of COVID 19
• Lockdown 2.0 announced on 14th April 2020
• Lockdown 3.0 announced on 01st May 2020
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3. COVID-19 and Indian Agriculture
• At the time of announcement of lockdown, India
was preparing for rabi harvest
• Wheat- A major food grain crop of north India
was ready to harvest along with other crops like
barley and mustard
• Due to lockdown movement of labour and
machinery was stopped and harvest halted
• Movement of vehicles for essential services like
food grains, fruits and vegetables were allowed
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4. Production Estimates
(2nd advance Production Estimates by Deptt of Agri.)
• India is second biggest producer of wheat and
expected production is 106.2 million tons which is
2.6 million tons more than previous year production
• Oilseed production is estimated as 34.19 million tons
which are 2.6 mT more
• Sugarcane production is estimated 353.85 mT which
is 4.07 mT more
(source : The Economic Times Dt. 18/02/2020)
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5. Challenges to Marketing
• Availability of harvesting machinery and manpower
• Hassel free movement of vehicles across the district and state boundaries
• Preparedness of Market yards and collection centres by avoiding crowd
• Maintaining social distancing and hygiene in Market yards
• Encourage minimum touch/ contact with agri./horti. Produce
• Losses incurred in trade due to lockdown
• Slowing down of agricultural operations particularly horticultural crops like
mango, grapes and apple
• Decrease in demand due to closure of hotel and other bulk buyers
• Availability of Packing material
• Restriction on movement of traders
• Availability of supporting activities like auto repairs, spare parts, eateries
hotel, lodges etc.
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6. Innovative steps taken
• SOP were framed for operations of Markets
• Marking of places in yard for vehicles and farmers for
social distancing
• Thermal scanning and hand sanitization of visitors of
yard
• Sanitization of vehicles in markets
• Making it compulsory to wear masks in agri/ horti
markets
• Installation of hand free wash basins
• Adopting social distancing norms during harvest
• Token system adopted by market yard to avoid crowd
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9. Innovative steps Taken at National
Level
• Kisan Rath App launched on 17/04/20 to facilitate the
logistics
• All India Transport Call centre (1800 180 4200 and
14488) was set up to facilitate logistic related
problems.
• Kisan rails were operated during lockdown period over
67 routes
• 100 new markets were connected with e-NAM and
now increasing tally to 1000 markets soon
• Government fixed aggressive procurement targets and
procurement centres increased to 2790 from last year
1485
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10. Challenges
• To streamline the resource movement which was halted
due to COVID 19
• Effectively utilize the storage space and making it ready
for next harvest
• Finding alternatives for the consumption of agri produce
due to closure of hotels, restaurants etc
• Analysing the risk due to shrinkage of international
business due to COVID 19 and finding its alternatives
• Policy planning on high value agri commodities due to
reduction in disposable income in job loss scenario
• Effect on business due to steep change in exchange rate
of Rupee
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11. Suggestions
• A national level task force comprising the representatives of state
marketing boards should be constituted to work out future strategy
• Reduce dependence on Azadpur mandi Delhi and find alternatives
• Re-assess the availability and utility of storage capacity keeping in view the
production of agri commodities and their consumption
• Investment in agri-market infrastructure and its professional management
• Effective implementation and extra allocation to Market intervention
schemes
• Model on Credit in trade should be developed on e- NAM
• Efforts should be made to increase inter state and intra state trade in e-
NAM
• Developing stake holder specific training modules of e-NAM activities and
trade. E.g. Farmer module, trader module, transporter module etc.
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12. Contact
Name : Anil Chauhan
E mail : anil.chauhan2@gmail.com
FB : https://www.facebook.com/anil.chauhan2
Twitter : @_anilchauhan
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13. Thank You
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