Centre to bring APMC Act 2.0 by 2017 to boost farmers' income

Government will be ready with second version of model Agricultural Produce Market Committee (APMC) Act by next year, aiming to increase farmers' income by measures like taking contract farming out of the law.
NITI Aayog and Agriculture Ministry are working on the new model law, which can be adopted by the states. At present, few states like Punjab have come out with separate contract farming law.
The new APMC Act will also have provision for promoting online or spot (e-national agriculture market) agriculture market platforms and ensure that all these measures are revenue neutral for states.
If taken out of the purview of the APMC Act, there would be no mandi tax on contract farming. Also, the new law would provide farmers an alternative to sell fruit and vegetables directly to retailers. Earlier, there was a demand to delist fruit and vegetables from APMC Act to deal with inflation.

"The draft model APMC Act will be ready in next three months then we will put it in public domain for feedback from all stakeholders, including farmers and states. Once finalised it will go to Union Cabinet for approval," Agriculture Additional Secretary Ashok Dalwai told reporters after NITI Aayog's meeting with states on farm reform agenda.
The move assumes significance in view of NDA government's ambiguous target of doubling farmers income by March, 2022. NITI Aayog had pitched for reforms in the agriculture sector in the meeting of NITI Aayog chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi earlier in July this year.

During the meeting, Aayog Member (Agriculture) Ramesh Chand made a case for multi-pronged reforms in the agriculture sector to deal with farm suicides, low income and slow growth rate of the sector.

He had said, "It is almost impossible to double farmer income if we do not address issue of agriculture marketing, give him freedom to diversify and the issue of rising tenancy in agriculture."
Briefing the reporters after national consultations with states, Chand said, "Another model APMC Act will be drafted based on the suggestion of the states. Today states have raised concerns about losing revenue due to implementation of APMC Act."

He cited the example of Punjab which stated that the state earns Rs 2,000 crore from mandis in a year. Allowing private mandis or market and other trading mechanism may hit their revenues.
Elaborating about reforms agenda being pushed by NITI
Aayog with states, he said, "We have taken up reforms in 6-7 areas in phased manner. Some of the reforms which can be taken up in a year or two are short term reforms."
NITI Aayog and Agriculture Ministry today jointly conducted one-day national consultation with states and UTs on reforms in the farm sector.
The three important areas of reform namely agricultural marketing reforms, laws related to felling, transportation and processing of farm forestry produce and land leasing (tenancy) for agricultural purposes were discussed in the meeting.

The meeting was attended by Principal Secretaries in-charge of Agriculture marketing, Forest and Revenue Departments of the States.
The Vice chairman, NITI Aayog Arvind Panagaria while inaugurating the consultation stressed that reform will be the key for enhancing agricultural prosperity and should be the part of vision for 15 years being prepared by NITI Aayog.
Chand made a presentation on Agriculture Reforms. It was also highlighted that while reforms happened in other sectors of economy post 1990-91 liberalization, the agriculture witnessed patchy and half done reforms.
Dalwai mentioned that the reform process started in 2000 which faced a slow down after the initial years.

He stated that in order to promote emergence of alternative channels and encourage investment in development of marketing and cold chain infrastructures.
Department of Agriculture Cooperation has been advocating States to provide complete freedom to the farmers to sell their fruits and vegetables to the buyer of their choice in the notified market area with the additional option to sell the produce in the main yard, wherever they get better prices.
Although 14 States have initiated reforms in varied models, states need to adopt the model which is more beneficial for them, the statement issued by Agriculture Ministry said.
The states supported the views of the NITI Aayog and Agriculture Ministry and pitched for the reforms to be put on fast track.

It was decided that Agriculture Ministry will come out with model APMC Act soon, incorporating suggestions from States for quick action on reforms.
On genetically modified crops, Chand expressed his view in favour of these crop saying that these foods are fit for human being as per experts views.