About Maharashtra Agricultural Competitiveness Project - MACP in , Pune

World Bank assisted Maharashtra Agriculture Competitiveness Project is an initiative by Government of Maharashtra to overcome deficiencies in the present agriculture marketing system of the State. The present marketing system is placed with shortcomings. Though there is a good amount of marketable surplus in the district, the producers do not get reasonable price for their produce because of serious deficiencies in the present agricultural marketing system viz.
i)Value chain is too long and fragmented and therefore, particularly in perishables, share of the producer in the consumer’s rupee is very low (it is at times as low as 20%),
ii)Lack of standardization and enforcement of quality and grades
iii)Insufficient and ineffective services to the farmers regarding inputs and information,
iv)Lack of facilities of grading, packing, cold storage and processing,
v)Inadequate transparency in marketing
vi)Lack of private sector investment.
This problem could be better addressed through different interventions resting on two pillars, viz.,
i)Improving Extension support to farmers, and
ii)Improving Agricultural Marketing.
The productivity improvement and production of improved quality of various agricultural produce is absolutely necessary to make agriculture viable. The thrust so far has been on increasing the productivity, and therefore, the extension machinery of the departments concerned was targeting to increase the production. Market led extension was totally lacking and this resulted in poor understanding of agricultural marketing by the concerned departmental agencies and the producers.
Various national programmes like Rashtriya Krishi Vikas Yojana (RKVY), National Horticulture Mission (NHM), and National Food Security Mission (NFSM) are implemented in the district. The proposed MACP, with the assistance of the WB, is one of the many steps being taken by the GoM, to address the various issues and constraints in development of agriculture. The components and subcomponents under MACP are based on the ingredients of the overall strategy of the State. MACP aims to enhance the productivity in agriculture and improvement of quality production through capacity building of producers with the help of ATMA programs. In order to enable farmer to fetch competitive price for the agriculture produce, various alternative channels of marketing are proposed to be developed, besides strengthening the present marketing structure, by way of modernization.
The Project Development Objective (PDO) and overall objectives of MACP are outlined below. The Project proposes to improve the productivity and quality of produce in agriculture and allied sector by various interventions proposed under Component A. The objective of better and reasonable returns to the farmer of his produce can be achieved if the farmers’ access to the markets is improved. This has been proposed to be achieved by infrastructure development and creating alternative marketing channels under Component-B.
Various components and sub components in MACP and their component-level objective can be enumerated as follows:
Component A: Intensification and Diversification of Market led Production
(i) A1: Market-led Agriculture Technology Transfer (Objective: To increase the productivity of agriculture production by adopting modern technology.)
(ii) A2: Agri Business Promotion Facility (Objective: To create trained manpower to operate and manage the infrastructure facilities.)
(iii)A3: Market Information Services (Objective: To improve market access for enhancing the marketing opportunities for farmers.)
(iv)A4: Livestock Support Services (Objective: To strengthen sources of alternative income to farmers.)
Component B: Improving Farmer Access to Markets
(i)B1: Promoting Alternative Markets
•B1.1: Product Aggregation and Sale through Producers Association (Objective: To provide improved post harvest handling facilities at village level.)
•B1.2: Warehouse Receipts Development (Objective: To improve the capacity of farmers on price risk mitigation.)
•B1.3: Rural Haat Markets (Objective: To strengthen alternative marketing channel of traditional rural haats.)
•B1.4: Introducing e-Marketing Platform (Objective: To establish e-trading as one of the alternative marketing channels.
(ii)B2: Modernizing Existing Markets
•B2.1: Modernizing Wholesale Markets (Objective: To improve transparency in all APMCs and to provide basic and productive infrastructure.)
•B2.1: Upgrading Livestock Yards (Objective: To improve transparency in all Livestock Markets and to provide modern infrastructure.)
Lots of efforts are being put in by the State Government to increase the production with the help of technology up-gradation and dissemination of technology amongst the farmers. However there are critical gaps existing in the present system, because of which the producers are not in a position to get the reasonable value for their produce.
The project component A seeks to focus on the strengthening ATMA programme to facilitate market-led extension. This will call for reorientation of the extension functionaries to focus on improved productivity, quality, market information and improved methods of marketing based on the updated market information and intelligence. This renewed focus on ATMA extension system would necessitate strengthening ATMA by institution and operation, making them vibrant and efficient to face the emerging challenges in agricultural production, marketing and agri-business.
The focus would be on ways and means for developing and strengthening interdepartmental linkages to support not only Farmers Common Service centers (FCSC) but also for providing support to the farmers in all the districts to achieve increased income from their land based occupations involving crops, horticulture and livestock. The effort would be to implement ATMA programme as an integrated, demand-led and farmer-centered programme of all line departments with special focus on marketing extension in all the districts of the state.