Author(s):

Dinesh, Anwesha Dey and Shubhi Patel

Abstract: A very old saying “India resides in its villages” is very true in its sense as the majority of the population of our country resides in a rural background around 833.1 million people are scattered in 236,004 villages in India. Agriculture has been the mainstay in India, feeding million mouths around the globe and providing income to 61.5% of 1300 million Indian population (Agricultural Census, 2011). The farming households, amount to 159.6 million (Census, 2011) consisting largely of small and marginal farmers with an average size of about 1.1 hectares forms the base of Indian agriculture. Rural markets play a significant role in connecting the farmers to their consumers. More than 22,000 periodical markets form an integral part of rural and semi-urban agriculture marketing system. eNAM was a government initiative to connect the farmers and consumers around the country on a single platform through the APMCs. In order to increase the efficiency and benefits of eNAM, government in union budget 2018-19 to ensure better connectivity of markets and hence increase the producers’ share in consumers’ rupee by launching the concept of Grameen Agricultural Markets (GrAMs). The study reveals that around 22,000 GrAMs were planned to made functional to serve as first mile facilitator to organise marketing chain and ease farmers to retail agricultural marketing at village level. This will assist farmers to sell produce locally and directly link with terminal markets through physical or online transaction. GrAMs will facilitate two principal activities which include direct sale and aggregation of lots. Thus, an effective marketing system will be a boon for a progressive agrarian nation like India through linking between its producers and consumers.

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