Changing Pattern of Agriculture Marketing in Madhya Pradesh: A Review

Agriculture marketing in Madhya Pradesh has not changed gradually. It has changed in bursts, each one triggered by a different combination of policy pressure, market failure, or technological opportunity. The state that once relied almost entirely on a network of licensed market committees now operates across multiple channels, several of which would have been unrecognisable to a mandi trader in 2005. This paper maps those changes and asks what they have actually delivered for farmers across the state’s varied agricultural geography. The review draws on two decades of secondary data covering 2001 to 2023. Sources include market statistics compiled by the Madhya Pradesh State Agricultural Marketing Board, electronic transaction records from the SFAC-managed e-NAM portal, crop arrival data from the state Directorate of Agriculture, and published assessments from NITI Aayog, NABARD, and the Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare. The analysis covers infrastructure expansion, pricing channel comparison, scheme-level outcomes, and institutional gaps. Three findings stand out. Mandis integrated with e-NAM recorded average price gains of 11.3 per cent over traditional auction outcomes by 2022-23, a commercially meaningful improvement for farmers who transacted through the platform. The Bhavantar Bhugtan Yojana reached 18.4 lakh farmers but carried a design vulnerability that allowed traders to suppress mandi prices strategically. FPO-linked marketing produced the strongest price outcomes across commodities studied, yet fewer than 30 per cent of registered FPOs in Madhya Pradesh were financially viable in their first three operating years. The paper argues that irrigation access, digital connectivity, and institutional affiliation are the primary determinants of which farmers benefit from market reform, and that the majority of small and marginal cultivators in rain-fed and tribal districts remain structurally outside these gains.