Coimbatore : A capacity building programme was organised for the officials of department of agriculture market and agri business as part of providing new initiative in agriculture marketing at Tamil Nadu Agricultural University here.

The 3-day programe was in the backdrop of various steps being taken by the Central and State governments to increase the income of farmers and to address the farmers’ distress.

In this context reforms in agricultural marketing was considered as an important strategy and the new initiatives in agricultural marketing include Electronic- National Agriculture Market, Agriculture Produce and Livestock Marketing Act – 2017, Model Contract Farming Act 2018 and collective marketing through Farmer Producer Organisations, a university release said Friday.

The programme, which concluded on March 13, was organised by the Centre for Agricultural and Rural Development Studies in TNAU in collaboration with CCS National Institute of Agricultural Marketing, Jaipur on “New Dimensions in Agricultural Marketing”.

Thirty officials from the department from all over the state participated in the training programme, which covered various innovative efforts in agricultural marketing including Agricultural Produce Market Committee (APMC) Act, 2003, Agriculture Produce and Livestock Marketing Act–2017, Model Contract Farming Act 2018, Market linkage through Farmer Producer Organisations and AGMARK Grades and Standards.

In his concluding remarks University Vice Chancellor Prof. Dr. N. Kumar, stressed the need to ensure remunerative price for agricultural produces and to minimise the post harvest losses through innovative marketing strategies.

He advised the officers to initiate steps to address the problems in agricultural marketing to increase the income of the farmers with the knowledge gathered in training, it said.