Exhorting Nafed to look beyond government businesses and expand its base far and wide, Union Cooperation Minister Amit Shah said that being the apex body in agriculture marketing, Nafed should build a solid marketing network from PACS to district co-op feds to state marketing feds on the strength of transparency and technology.
Nafed could be the storehouse of all the grains of the country and private companies making atta, mustard oil or polished rice, sugar packets should come to its door instead of going directly to farmers. The profit thus earned would not only be higher but also would go to the farmers directly, underlined the Union Minister.
Shah was speaking during a National Conference on “Role of Cooperatives in Agricultural Marketing” in Bhopal, organized by the agri giant NAFED on Monday evening.
I do not ask you not to procure food grains on behalf of the government and help stabilize the market prices of food grains as you have been doing in the past. But in order to get greater returns to the farmers, Nafed must not be dependent only on govt procurement, Shah said, rousing the entire Nafed leadership from slumber by giving them a wake up call.
“Prime Minister Narendra Modi has revived Nafed from its deathbed and he will see to it that Nafed becomes multi-dimensional and multi-pronged so far as agricultural marketing is concerned”, said Shah with great confidence on the occasion.
Union Agriculture and Farmers Welfare Minister Narendra Singh Tomar and Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh Shivraj Singh Chouhan were the special guests. There were also many top-notch co-operators present on the occasion and they included NCUI President Dileep Sanghani, Nafed Chairman Bijender Singh, Kribhco Chairman Dr Chandra Pal Singh Yadav, among others.
Continuing his speech Shah said that the Modi Government would make Primary Agriculture Credit Societies (PACS) multipurpose. A Model Act will be brought in soon for a strong marketing system from PACS to APEX.
On this occasion Union Agriculture Minister Tomar said that the spirit of cooperation resides in the culture of India. Chief Minister Chouhan said that in MP, 4,500 PACS have been developed as Common Facility Centres.
Shah also lauded NAFED for the stellar role it has played so far and recalled that except in dalhan and telhan, the country has become self-reliant. In the last 8 years a lot of concrete work has been done to double farmers’ income. The most important of this is the MSP.
“The food grain production in the country has exceeded 314 million metric tonnes. Many things have been done to make the marketing of agricultural produce smooth and up-to-date, the main one being the E-NAM platform, with which one thousand mandis have been connected. About two and a half crore farmers have registered on e-Nam”, said Shah.
“Lakhs of traders have registered, while more than 2,100 Farmer Producer Organizations (FPOs) from 20 states have joined it. e-NAM has brought transparency in marketing and farmers have begun to get fair share. A business of Rs two lakh crore has been done on e-NAM so far”, informed the Minister.
