The Centre is persuading the states to reject the Agricultural Produce Market Committees (APMCs) and adopt electronic National Agriculture Market (e-NAM) to benefit farmers, reports LiveMint.

The e-NAM is a pan-India electronic trading portal which networks the existing APMC mandis to create a unified national market for agricultural commodities.

The union government has been promoting the e-NAM and many states have also agreed to take it up at their level, said Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharama at an event organised by the National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD).

"Together with this we're also making sure that the states are cajoled to reject APMCs. It has served its purpose at one time there's no doubt. But today there are many difficulties associated with the agricultural produce market committee, which at every state level has become not so efficient in helping the farmers find better price points for their produce," Sitharaman was quoted as saying in the report.

"We are talking with states to sort of dismantle that and move towards e-NAM for farmers," she added.

According to the report, as many as 21 mandis of eight states namely Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Rajasthan, Gujarat, Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh had joined hands to start inter-state trade on e-NAM.

Inter-state trade provide farmers with better market access, more buyers/traders and help in realising better prices for their produce.