PIB Summary- 17th April, 2023 | Current Affairs & Hindu Analysis: Daily, Weekly & Monthly - UPSC PDF Download

National Agriculture Market (e-NAM) portal

Why in News?
Prime Minister recently said that with the help of the National Agriculture Market (e-NAM) portal, the farmers will be able to decide the place, time and price of selling their products, and reduce the burden on the consumers.

e-NAM

• e-NAM was an innovative initiative in agricultural marketing to enhance farmers accessibility digitally to multiple number of markets & buyers and to bring transparency in trade transactions with the intent to improve price discovery mechanism, quality commensurate price realization and also to develop the concept of One Nation One Market for agriculture produce.
• Small Farmers Agribusiness Consortium (SFAC) is the lead agency forimplementing eNAM under the aegis of Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers’ Welfare, Government of India.
• e-NAM networks the existing APMC mandis to create a unified national market for agricultural commodities with a vision to promote uniformity in agriculture marketing by streamlining of procedures across the integrated markets, removing information asymmetry between buyers and sellers and promoting real time price discovery based on actual demand and supply.
• This online platform will prove to be a giant leap in reforming the agriculture market in India.
• Farmers are free to register on e-NAM portal and they are uploading their produce for sale online to the traders across all e-NAM mandis and traders can bid for the lots available for sale on e-NAM from any location.

Benefits of e-NAM

• e-NAM would help traders to find and arrange timely movement of produces from mandi to various other locations.
• With this interface, Traders would be able to access more than 7.76 lakh trucks through eNAM Platform.
• This intervention brings immense benefits to our farmers in augmenting their incomes by enabling them to realize competitive & remunerative prices in a transparent manner without incurring additional costs.
• Quality assaying testing facilities is being provided in e-NAM mandis which helps famers in getting prices commensurate with quality of their produce.
• Electronic weighing scales have been provided to accurately weigh the commodities of farmers after bidding on e-NAM platform to bring transparency in weighing, Payment to farmers by traders now can be done through mobile phone using BHIM payment facility.

Meeting of Agricultural Chief Scientists (MACS)

Why in News?
The G20 Meeting of Agricultural Chief Scientists (MACS) will be held in Varanasi from 17 to 19 April 2023 which will feature MAHARISHI Initiative.

Meeting of Agricultural Chief Scientists: Agenda and Details

• The first Meeting of Agricultural Chief Scientists (MACS) was held in Mexico in 2012, and the MACS includes ministries or governmental bodies responsible for agricultural research in the respective G20 states as well as leading research institutions which strategically advise these decision-makers.
• The theme of the 2023 MACS meeting is “Sustainable Agriculture and Food Systems for Healthy People and Planet.”
• The MACS will discuss several topics including food and nutrition security, resilience to climate change, One Health approaches, digital agriculture, and public-private partnerships for research, education, and extension.
• The meeting will feature the MAHARISHI Initiative, which focuses on research and awareness about agro-biodiversity, food security, and nutrition in line with the International Year of Millets 2023.

There are four priority areas for focused discussion at the meeting, including

• Food Security and Nutrition: The role of Frontiers in Science and Technology
• Building resilience and sustainable agriculture through approaches of climate-resilient agriculture and One Health
• Digitalization for Agricultural Transformation
• Public-Private Partnerships for Research and Development.