Status of reforms and new initiatives in the improvement of agricultural marketing in Rajasthan: Emerging issues

Rajasthan is the largest state of the country and also the largest producer of bajra, mustard, cumin, coriander, isabgol etc. but still there is a lot of scope for improvement in the fi eld of agricultural marketing not only in Rajasthan but in the whole country. Thus, to remove the glitches of traditional marketing system and to facilitate stake holders in agricultural marketing the government has initiated APMC Act in 1960’s to protect the interests of the farmers and to provide them various incentives. In 2003, the New Model Act got formulated in which certain shortcomings of APMC Act, 1960 were tried to be replaced with more innovative and revised rules and regulations like abolition of middlemen, full payment on same day, contract farming, e-trading, Public-Private Partnership (PPP) etc. PPP also tends to play an important role for the development of agricultural marketing infrastructure by initiating private investment. In PPP both the parties share the capital, profits and risks to work for the social welfare. The government should adopt policies to promote private investment by providing subsidy on interest rates, promoting more projects for PPP, creating awareness programs and workshops for farmers etc.