Page 29 - BF Cover January 2021.cdr

ARTICLE

AGRICULTURE

MARKETING

INFRASTRUCTURE

(AMI)

"Emerging scope & challenges for
Institutional finance"

A griculture is one of the most critical sectors of positive returns to the producer. In the light of the

Government's vision to double farmers' income by 2022, it
the Indian economy that not only drives the
entails an urgent need for putting in place better farmer-
growth and development of agriculture and
allied sectors directly but also affects the well-
Haats as Gramin Agricultural Markets (GrAMs) and declaring
being of rural people at large, their prosperity and market linkages through developing and upgrading Gramin
employment and also forms an important resource base for warehouses/cold storages as market sub-yards , promoting
a number of agro-based industries and agro-services. While scales of economy in production & post-production activities
the food security constantly augmented though various plan through active participation of Farmer Producer
periods by strategic planning and mission mode schemes has Organizations, squeezing food supply chain through direct
largely been achieved, but the fulcrum of monetising the marketing in every forms of wholesale and retails (farmer-
farmers and their economic well being is still a challenge. consumer market), symmetrising market information,
promoting market driven production through a demand
An efficient, competitive and accessible market with based market intelligence and price forecasting system and
adequate post-harvest and marketing infrastructure can promoting quality management of farmers' produce.
potentially achieve its core objective of generating net
Agricultural Marketing Infrastructure
About the author
Agricultural Marketing Infrastructure includes storage
Pravindra Kumar infrastructure like warehouses, cold storage, godowns
Senior Manager - Faculty including stand-alone silos for storage of food grains with
Staff Training Centre necessary ancillary facilities like loading, unloading, bagging
Union Bank of India facility etc. The estimates of National Centre for Agricultural
Kolkata
Economics and Policy Research (NCAP) projecting total

BANKING FINANCE | JANUARY | 2021 | 29