Centre seeks amendment in APMC Act by states

The Centre has asked states to bring reforms in the Agricultural Produce Marketing Committee (APMC) Act to provide institutional support to direct marketing and contract farming arrangements and comply within three months.

"States have assured that they will bring necessary legislative changes in APMC act within three months. Even they have expressed preparedness to go for an ordinance in case of a delay in amendments to the act," secretary at the agriculture ministry Radha Singh said here today at a CII session on agriculture.

The model APMC Act also provides an institutional framework to support contract farming and direct marketing as this would link small farmers to agro-processing industry, which would provide them an opportunity for advice, seeds, credit and market linkages, Singh said.

"The reforms in APMC Act in respective states would allow competitive agricultural markets in private and cooperative sectors," she said.

Meanwhile, the government is working out integrated food law framework to bring convergence of several laws including the prevention of food adulteration act for accelerated growth of agro-processing industry, Singh said.

The government would enact Protection of Plant Varities and Farmers' Rights Act, 2001 to protect varities, rights of farmers and plant breeders. It is also planning to liberalise the Essential Commodities Act to remove controls on commodity movement, storage and marketing, she said.

Asked about the total agriculture credit disbursed by the commercial banks, Singh said the total lending would touch Rs 1,17,000 crore in this fiscal as against Rs 87,000 crore in the last financial year.

Large scale investment in agriculture infrastructure projects is necessary for development of post-harvest and cold chain infrastructure near to the farmers' fields, she said.

"This was recently assessed by an expert committee set up by the ministry of agriculture which estimates that an investment requirement of Rs 11,172 crore in next 10 years would be necessary for agri-marketing infrastructural development," she said.

A major portion of this investment is expected from private sector, with due support from the government, she said.

She said the Centre would be facilitating full negotiability of warehousing receipts. "It is proposing to promote commodity exchanges for price discovery and risk management in agriculture," she added.