13Built
National Agri Exchange
The 2015 proposal
A National Agri Exchange connecting all dealers — compare and equalise prices, move goods from surplus to deficit, e-auction format; final price = origin price + transport cost.
Where it stands in 2026
e-NAM is exactly this, built (April 2016): 1,656 mandis, 1.80 crore farmers, ₹4.82 lakh crore traded cumulatively. But careful studies find inter-state trade is still a small share — logistics, assaying trust and payment risk keep trade local.
The open gap
True spatial arbitrage — 'one nation, one price' — is still unrealised.
How to sustain & deepen it
Unlock inter-state arbitrage by pairing e-NAM with machine assaying (#11), warehouse-receipt delivery (#16) and escrow payment, so a buyer three states away can bid with confidence — 'one nation, one price' needs trust, not just a portal.
Sources
- ↗ e-NAM (National Agriculture Market) — Ministry of Agriculture & Farmers' Welfare
- ↗ Agmarknet — daily mandi prices — Directorate of Marketing & Inspection, Govt. of India
- ↓ Electronic National Agricultural Market (e-NAM): A Review of Performance and Prospects — Directorate of Economics & Statistics, DA&FW, Government of India, 2021
- ↓ Creating Agricultural Markets: How the Ethiopia Commodity Exchange Connects Farmers and Buyers — International Finance Corporation / World Bank Group, 2017
- ↓ The Ethiopian Commodity Exchange and the spatial integration of grain markets (Grantham WP 204) — Grantham Research Institute, London School of Economics, 2015
- ↓ Is the Electronic Market the Way Forward to Overcome Market Failures in Agriculture? (IEG WP 387) — Institute of Economic Growth, Delhi, 2019