AgriNation News Network

New Delhi. 26 March 2018

Prime Minister Narendra Modi said that the Centre will upgrade 22,000 rural ‘haats’ and connect them with a national agriculture market (e-NAM) to enable farmers to sell their produce online.

“Efforts are on to connect local village mandis to the wholesale market and then with the global market,” he said during his ‘Mann Ki Baat’ monthly radio address.

Village haats, to be upgraded, will also be integrated with the agriculture produce and marketing committee (APMC), he added.

The centre came up with a model Agricultural Produce and Livestock Marketing (Promotion and Facilitation) Act, to revamp agricultural markets last year.

On the government’s proposal to fix minimum support price (MSP) of the notified crops at least one and a half times of their cost, Modi said the MSP will include labour cost of other workers employed, expenses incurred on own animals and cost of animals and machinery taken on rent, cost of seeds, cost of each type of fertilizer used, cost of irrigation.

It will also include the land revenue paid to the state government by the farmers, interest paid on working capital, ground rent in case of leased land.

“And not only this. Cost of the labour of the farmer himself or any other person of his family who contributes his or her labour in agricultural work will also be added to the cost of production,” Modi added.

——————————————————————————————————————————————