The Tamil Nadu government has amended the Agricultural Produce Marketing Committee (APMC) Act by an ordinance stating that the new reforms will be beneficial to the farmers in the state. 

 

The state government promulgated an ordinance on 29 May 2020. As per the amendment, the new Act is described as Tamil Nadu Agricultural Produce Marketing (Regulation) Second Amendment Ordinance 2020. 

 

This is in tune with the opening up of agriculture marketing sector reforms as envisaged by the government of India as well as the government of Tamil Nadu. 

 

With this, the farmers in the state can sell produce to private agencies to fetch better prices. They can do direct marketing of their produce at the farm gate levels to agencies like BigBasket, Nilgiri’s, Pazhamudhir Cholai, etc to fetch better price. 

 

However, they are required to get a licence from the government to prevent misuse of mechanism. A formal structure supported by specific guidelines will provide farmers better money for their produce. 

 

Through a license model the state government will set up private or submarkets where farmers can auction their produce.

 

The big private warehouses, where farmers keep their produce, will also be designated as spots where auctioning out of farmers’ produce can be done to the respective traders. Apart from this, cold storages for vegetables and designated food parks will be allowed for the marketing of agriculture produce. 

 

In the proposed private markets, no fee will be collected from farmers and traders’ fee will also be restricted as per the structure in regulated markets. 

 

The regulated markets will now be overseen by a separate CEO. In the informal private markets, when the sale is undertaken, a commission is collected from both farmers as well as traders. However, in the regulated markets, one percent fee is levied for traders in the state.