National Agriculture Market (NAM) is a pan-India electronic trading portal which networks the existing APMC mandis to create a unified national market for agricultural commodities.

The NAM Portal provides a single window service for all APMC related information and services. This includes commodity arrivals & prices, buy & sell trade offers, provision to respond to trade offers, among other services. While material flow (agriculture produce) continues to happen through mandis, an online market reduces transaction costs and information asymmetry.

Agriculture minister Radha Mohan Singh has said that those states where APMC Act does not exist, to join the NAM scheme by framing necessary act so that farmers could benefit by way of enhanced income.

As many 17 States and 1 UT which have fully / partially modified their APMC Acts are Andhra Pradesh, Gurajat, Himachal Pradesh, Karnataka, Rajasthan, Goa, Madhya Pradesh, Telangana, Chhattisgarh, Mizoram, Punjab, Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Jharkhand, Nagaland, Haryana and Chandigarh (UT).

Three states and one UT have APMC Act and they have consented to bring changes in the act which is under process. These are Tamil Nadu, Odisha, Assam and Puducherry. Six states which have APMC Act but no change has been made as yet are Arunachal Pradesh, Tripura, Meghalaya, West Bengal, Jammu & Kashmir and Delhi. Out of them, West Bengal has demanded the e-NAM software for online trading.

While Sikkim does have APMC Act but is not implemented, three states and four UTs do not have any APMC Act. They are: Bihar, Kerala, Manipur, Andman & Nicobar Islands, Lakshwadeep Islands, Dadar & Nagar Haveli and Daman & Diu.

Agriculture marketing is administered by the states as per their agri-marketing regulations, under which, the state is divided into several market areas, each of which is administered by a separate Agricultural Produce Marketing Committee (APMC) which imposes its own marketing regulation (including fees). This fragmentation of markets, even within the state, hinders free flow of agri commodities from one market area to another and multiple handling of agri-produce and multiple levels of mandi charges ends up escalating the prices for the consumers without commensurate benefit to the farmer.

NAM addresses these challenges by creating a unified market through online trading platform, both, at State and National level and promotes uniformity, streamlining of procedures across the integrated markets, removes information asymmetry between buyers and sellers and promotes real time price discovery, based on actual demand and supply, promotes transparency in auction process, and access to a nationwide market for the farmer, with prices commensurate with quality of his produce and online payment and availability of better quality produce and at more reasonable prices to the consumer.

Read about the issues regarding national market for agricultural commodities