“The Karnataka Government is in the process of launching warehouse based online trading. It will be the first State to do so,” said Krishna Byre Gowda, state Minister for Agriculture.
He was addressing a gathering of farmers and traders after inaugurating the Cold Storage Unit and Warehouse to be maintained by Karnataka State Agricultural Produce Processing and Export Corporation (KAPPEC) at the APMC yard at Amaragol in Hubballi on Friday. The cold storage and warehouse have been built with the assistance extended under Assistance to States for Development of Export Infrastructure and Allied Activities (ASIDE) Scheme and Rashtriya Krishi Vikas Yojna (RKVY) of the Union Government.
The Minister said the State government was in the process of increasing the warehousing capacity and had already constructed warehouses with capacity of 5 lakh metric tonnes in the last two years.
“The plan is to increase it by 11 lakh MT in one and half year. The law has already been amended to treat the warehouses as sub market yards, whereby farmers will not have to bring their agriculture produce to the market from the warehouses. The farmers can sell their agriculture produce from the warehouses directly, through the warehouse-based online trading. We are in the process of educating the farmers and soon it will be launched,” he said.
Mr. Gowda pointed out that already the banks were offering pledge loan for the agricultural produce stored in the warehouses. “The farmers can make use of the same facility to defer selling of their produce till they get better prices. The warehouse based online trading is mainly for checking distress sale by farmers,” he said.
MLA N.H. Konaraddi demanded setting up of procurement centres for onion and making available seeds of Bengal gram for the rabi sowing.
Presiding over the function, Leader of Opposition in the Legislative Assembly Jagadish Shettar emphasised the need for proper maintenance of the cold storage and urged the officials to charge less to the farmers. He also demanded more space for mango crop in the cold storage so that the mango growers from the region could benefit. MLC Srinivas Mane and others were present. Earlier inaugurating the cold storage, the dignitaries checked the functioning of the unit.
