Integrated Scheme for Agricultural Marketing (ISAM)
Six schemes of 11th plan period have been merged in a single integrated scheme from April 1, 2014. The objective of this “Integrated Scheme for Agricultural Marketing (ISAM)”, which has Rs. 4500 Crore outlay in 12th plan; are as follows:
- Promotion of agri-marketing through creation of marketing and agribusiness infrastructure including storage
- Incentivize agri-market reforms
- Provide market linkages to farmers
- Provide access to agri-market information
- Support quality certification of agriculture commodities.
This scheme has five components:
- Agricultural Marketing Infrastructure (AMI): This component is been created by merging Rural Godown Scheme / Grameen Bhandaran Yojana (GBY) and Development/ Strengthening of Agricultural Marketing Infrastructure, Grading and Standardization (AMIGS).
- The objective is to create market infrastructure including Storage Infrastructure and Integrated Value Chain Projects (IVC)
- Marketing Research and Information Network (MRIN): to collect and disseminate the price and market data for efficiently be used by producers
- Strengthening of Agmark Grading Facilities (SAGF)
- Agri-Business Development (ABD) through Venture Capital Assistance (VCA) Project Development Facility (PDF)
- Training, Research and Consultancy through Choudhary Charan Singh National Institute of Agriculture Marketing (NIAM).
- Developing Agricultural Marketing Infrastructure
The most important component of this scheme is Agricultural Marketing Infrastructure (AMI).
By marketing infrastructure we mean developing infrastructure for effectively managing marketable surplus of agriculture including horticulture and of allied sectors including dairy, poultry, fishery, livestock and minor forest produce.
This scheme not only provides the basic infrastructure but also promotes innovative and latest technologies in agricultural marketing infrastructure, encouraging private and cooperative sector investments.
Since Rural Godown Scheme is now subsumed in this scheme, the AMI component will work towards development of storage, infrastructure facilities for grading, standardization and quality certification of agricultural produce. Along with this, the scheme also will ensure that price to the farmers commensurate with the quality of the produce, promoting pledge financing and marketing credit, negotiable warehousing receipt system and promotion of forward and future markets to increase farmers’ income.
Integrated Value Chain
One of the major objectives of the AMI component is to develop Integrated Value Chain Projects (IVC). Integrated value chain denotes a set of inter-linked chain of activities that bring specific agricultural commodity / commodities from harvesting till retailing and also those activities where value is added to the produce without change in the form of the produce. Development of IVC will also facilitate proper flow of subsidy to entrepreneurs.
