Helping farmers solve their marketing problem
The Tamil Nadu Agriculture University (TNAU) through its Directorate of Extension Education's Department of Market Extension arranged a buyer –seller interaction meeting in Chennai recently.
About 22 two vegetable growers from four districts Tiruvallur, Kancheepuram, Vellore and Villupuram were invited to participate and talk about their problems, ideas and expectations regarding marketing.
A city based private vegetable and fruits company called Efarm was also invited by the University to work out the modalities for procuring, pricing and planning for continuous supply from the farmers.
Precision farming
Dr.P.Murugesa Boopathy, Vice-Chancellor, in his inaugural address highlighted the benefits of precision farming system and how several farmers across the State adopted it.
He stressed the need for farmers to form commodity interest groups and plan their cropping so as to market their produce efficiently in a sustained manner.
Almost all the farmers said that they were aware about the several technologies available at the University but face problems in marketing their produce.
Mr.Venkatasubramanian, Founder, Efarm said that quality played the foremost role while buying and insisted the farmers to maintain the same.
The peak demand of every vegetable along with the preferred variety was explained so that farmers would grow the needy variety in future.
He also asked the farmers to assess the actual cost of production of each commodity so as to know the minimum selling price when any buyer came for procurement.
Common website
“A common website would be created soon in which the farmers could upload the availability of their commodities along with price and the transactions done through internet. It is similar to online auction in which farmers can themselves participate,” said Mr. Venkat.
Farmers were asked to provide their cultivation details for creating a database by the company after which the planning on procurement will be made.
First initiative
“The initiative taken by TNAU in arranging the interface between the actual vegetable growers and direct buyers is first of its kind which would focus towards an memorandum of understanding between the farmers and procurement agencies in order to solve the marketing crises prevailing for a long time,” said Dr. Boopathi.
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