Rems-Present status and prospects for promoting agricultural marketing system in Karnataka

Information Communication Technology (ICT) playing an important role in the field of agriculture in general and marketing of agricultural commodities in particular, which has been introduced in recent years, found to be very efficient and quick in disseminating information to farming community. Rashtreeya E-market Services (ReMS) started operating on 24th July 2017 to benefit the farmers in getting wider market and to eliminate exploitation by the middlemen. The present study attempted to analyse the growth and prospects for online marketing in Dharwad district of north Karnataka. The primary data was collected from 60 farmers relating to online transaction during the year 2017–18. The secondary data were collected from the APMC, Hubballi. Descriptive statistics and Garrett ranking technique were used to analyse the data. The results of the study revealed that, among all the study markets, APMC, Hubballi witnessed the highest quantity (67.39%) and value (38.23%) of commodity transacted. Among the commodities transacted, the quantity of green gram transacted was the highest (69.92%) followed by Pigeon pea (7.91%) and Bengal gram (10.44%). With regard to price, in online trading, the price received by farmers for all the commodities transacted was found to be higher than the traditional method, reflecting online trading was found to be beneficial to the farmers. In spite of these benefits in online trading, this method could not attract majority of the farmers in view of some of the constraints encountered such as grading was not adequate which is the pillar of ReMS and outstanding loans in financial institutions (I) and lack of immediate payment (II) were major constraints faced by the farmers. Based on the finding of the study, it is clear that there are a lot of prospects in the new system of marketing. To attract more number of farmers towards this innovative method of marketing, efforts should be made by the State Agricultural Marketing Board and the concerned APMCs have to create awareness regarding the benefits of online marketing over traditional method of marketing to get higher price and realize timely payment of the receipt for the produce marketed.