SRINAGAR, JULY 8:(KNS) The Jammu and Kashmir Agriculture Production and Farmers Welfare Department and BSE E-Agriculture Markets Limited (BEAM) today entered into an agreement to promote electronic value chain trading framework for a range of agriculture and horticulture commodities sourced from both the divisions of Jammu and Kashmir.

Principal Secretary, Agriculture Production and Farmers Welfare Department, Navin Kumar Choudhary and Chief Executive Officer, BEAM, Rajesh Sinha, today signed an MoU in this regard,

Directors of Agriculture and Horticulture of both the divisions and representatives of Policy Advocacy Research Centre (PARC) Mumbai who facilitated this alliance were present on the occasion.

The objective of this initiative is welfare of primary producers of agricultural and horticultural commodities in J&K by providing them an easy access to a transparent, inclusive and traceable e-market for their products all over the country. Both the sellers and buyers will be on board on the user friendly e-platform of BEAM whereby buyers across India will gain direct access to the agriculture and horticulture commodities with a transparent pricing and cash transaction mechanism resulting in better remuneration for the commodities to the farmers of the UT.

As part of this initiative, selected young and tech savy agri-entrepreneurs from the UT would be trained by BEAM to be part of the electronic marketplace. This would provide them an opportunity to earn additional income while working for enhancing value chain of UT’s agri-horti produce ultimately benefitting small holding farmers. The short ‘train-the-trainer’ programme by BEAM is also intended to generate multiplier effect in making agriculture and horticulture commodity transactions on electronic platform more popular in the UT.

Policy Advocacy Research Centre (PARC) Mumbai has offered to work in close coordination with BEAM in J&K for training and capacity building activities related to BEAM platform.

CEO BEAM also proposed to set up a Special Business Unit (SBU) specifically meant for managing online agriculture market of J&K.

On the occasion, it was also  decided that PARC Mumbai shall shortly organize a buyer seller meet in Mumbai for J&K stakeholders including agri-horti primary producers, traders and entrepreneurs with a view to help establish new  market linkages for J&K’s agri-horti products in Mumbai, most important business centre of India.(KNS)