Harvesting the benefits of NAM – (Electronic) National Agriculture Market !!!
Background :-
On 14 April 2016, Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched the e-NAM – Electronic National Agriculture Market – aiming to bring existing Agriculture Produce Market Committees (APMCs) on a common nationwide platform to facilitate trading in agricultural commodities.
Considering the monsoon deficiency of the first two years of the NDA government and the rising rural stress, the PM has set an ambitious target of doubling Indian farmers’ incomes by 2022, with the e-NAM playing a key role in achieving that vision.
Analysis:-
Indian agriculture has traditionally been marred by sub-scale farming operations, over-dependency on monsoons and poor supply chains, resulting in inadequate price realizations.
Every central government has juggled between guaranteeing minimum prices for farmers and managing food inflation. The compounding effects of these issues have kept Indian farmers struggling for subsistence incomes.
The central and state governments have attempted to manage this complex supply-demand equilibrium of agricultural produce through minimum support prices, buying produce directly for the Food Corporation of India (FCI) stocks from the farmers and repeatedly urging APMCs to unshackle their stringent rules.
The small-scale farmers, however, continue to be condemned to running a difficult commercial operation, the alternatives being a search for temporary farm wage jobs or migrating to cities.
In 2003, the government under prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee tried to reform the APMCs. The government created a model act, which asked states to enact laws to:
- · Remove licences for APMC agents
- · Permit creation of new APMCs outside of the existing ones like the cooperatives
- · Remove multiple levies
- · Permit contract farming for bulk buyers
- · Create special markets for different types of commodities with varying restrictions, especially opening up the markets for non-perishables
- · Goad APMCs to invest in modern supply chains from the profits they make
- · Allow direct sale of farm produce to large buyers
States have since moved in this direction at varying pace. Most of the more than 7,300 APMCs in the country, including the 600-odd district-level APMCs, continue to be run by a middlemen network that is busy choking farmers’ access to the buyers in the supply chain.
The programme has opened up an opportunity after 13 years of Vajpayee’s stillborn efforts to reduce Indian agrarian distress. To ensure that e-NAM gets adopted in spirit and benefits the small-scale farmers across the country, the government still has some way to go. Here are 10 areas that should be a point of focus in the next couple of years:
1. Encouraging states to participate in e-NAM
2. Enabling large mandis to lead the way
3. Achieving success early
4. Standardisation of quality of produce
A key aspect that can delay adoption will be the differing quality of the same commodity across the markets. When a buyer purchases a share of a blue chip on an electronic stock market, the share has the same characteristic as that bought by every other buyer on that market. This is not true for agriculture commodities. The type of wheat in Punjab and MP will differ significantly. Even the type of wheat in western and eastern MP will differ from each other.
While the e-NAM will have the provision of quality assessors to certify the produce, there has to be an institutional attempt for quality standardisation, like the option of buying and selling half-a-dozen types of wheat, aggregated for similar characteristics. These teething issues should be addressed on priority.
5. Clearing, settlement and counter guarantees
All trading markets have an associated element of clearing (matching buyers and sellers and assigning trades) and settlement (exchange of the traded commodity and money between buyers and sellers). While there is a network of banks that will participate in the e-NAM for the financial operations, there may be initial hesitation for participants to sign up due to the opaqueness of counter guarantees in place.
As of now, the middlemen in the mandis perform these functions, and personal trust is key underwriting element despite the routine financial gouging involved. The government may have to spend time and resources in educating potential participants in the market, making features and associated fallbacks of e-NAM.
When Indian Railways first launched online ticket booking, the traditional agents who used to facilitate physical ticket bookings did not lose business. They just started operating online terminals, still charging the small one-off ticket buyers for the facility. The APMCs and their intermediaries may well replicate this same behaviour. Admittedly, it will be a more transparent operation for farmers, but the government must strive to scale up e-NAM like the fully functional IRCTC website sooner rather than later.
6. Standardisation of quantities
Electronic markets of all kinds have a concept of lot sizes – the minimum quantities that can be traded. In the case of agricultural commodities, this is a big issue, especially for the small farmers. While a farmer may be willing to sell his produce on the e-NAM, the operation has to be practical – the seller should not incur very high transportation and shipment charges; it would make his price untenable. With the logistics business booming across the country, there’s a case for the government to address this issue with the help of technology and private participation.
7. Storage facilities and supply chain technology
Since most APMCs have not invested in basic facilities like warehouses, cold storages and inventory management systems, storing agricultural produce before or after trading is very difficult for farmers. Today’s systems are based on the assumption that the farmer will not store the produce anywhere except at the farm gates, and then transport it a short distance to the nearest mandis. However, proper price discovery and national trading needs to be backed up by massive investment in storage sites and facilities. The 2016-17 Union Budget opened up the food-processing sector for foreign direct investment (FDI). This change coupled with the logistics boom should reflect in the agricultural supply chains in the short-term.
8. Easier transportation of agricultural produce
Most farmers today use small vehicles to take their produce to the nearby mandis. However, national markets would require movement of the agricultural produce, including perishable ones, across the district and state borders. The maze of permits, the condition of the road network, the ability of the railways to transport commodities at a scale – are some of the areas the central government has to focus on, on priority. Else, the APMC middlemen may cite impracticality of transport options as proof against e-NAM being an effective replacement for their committees.
9. Investment in special transportation vehicles
As India looks to scale up manufacturing, the government can creatively bridge the lack of specialised agricultural produce transportation vehicles with the help of the ‘Make In India’ programme. If private players can be encouraged to spend on research and development on “mobile cold storages” and large farmers, APMCs or transport operators can be encouraged to buy fit-for-purpose vehicles, the reach of the e-NAM may widen fast. Ultimately, the farmers will benefit in spite of the geographical boundaries.
10. Short-term financing
The APMCs and their agents today perform a central function in the supply chain, which is to make short-term finances available at high rates of interest. These middlemen are also the first port-of-call for many farmers for their day-to-day as well as long-term (e.g. marriage, education) cash requirements, thus doubling up as moneylenders. Financial inclusion has naturally been a key area for the Modi government, with a slew of measures adopted to bring the bottom of the pyramid population into the financial net. The government should find a way to extend these inclusion programmes for agricultural credit, which can ultimately make the adoption of e-NAM successful.
The adoption of e-NAM is a test of implementation for the Modi government. The eventual success of the market will also depend on the enthusiasm and participation of the state governments. The central government has been able to create a fairly broad consensus and a sense of competition among the states in areas like ease of doing business, power distribution reforms and smart cities. The same zeal and a federal outlook need to be urgently applied to the e-NAM. The good news is that there are examples of targeted success already in this area. The e-choupal, run by the consumer goods major ITC for many years, has addressed many of the above issues already.
The ministries concerned – agriculture, food processing, food and civil supplies, road transportation and highways and finance – have to come together to create fully-packaged solutions with a long-term vision. The Ministry of Agriculture can lead this effort with the help of sector experience, innovative ideas, technology, and the capacity for risk-taking and entrepreneurship, and usher in real rural transformation.
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On March 31, the World Economic Forum (WEF) released its annual Gender Gap Report 2021. The Global Gender Gap report is an annual report released by the WEF. The gender gap is the difference between women and men as reflected in social, political, intellectual, cultural, or economic attainments or attitudes. The gap between men and women across health, education, politics, and economics widened for the first time since records began in 2006.
[wptelegram-join-channel link=”https://t.me/s/upsctree” text=”Join @upsctree on Telegram”]No need to remember all the data, only pick out few important ones to use in your answers.
The Global gender gap index aims to measure this gap in four key areas : health, education, economics, and politics. It surveys economies to measure gender disparity by collating and analyzing data that fall under four indices : economic participation and opportunity, educational attainment, health and survival, and political empowerment.
The 2021 Global Gender Gap Index benchmarks 156 countries on their progress towards gender parity. The index aims to serve as a compass to track progress on relative gaps between women and men in health, education, economy, and politics.
Although no country has achieved full gender parity, the top two countries (Iceland and Finland) have closed at least 85% of their gap, and the remaining seven countries (Lithuania, Namibia, New Zealand, Norway, Sweden, Rwanda, and Ireland) have closed at least 80% of their gap. Geographically, the global top 10 continues to be dominated by Nordic countries, with —Iceland, Norway, Finland, and Sweden—in the top five.
The top 10 is completed by one country from Asia Pacific (New Zealand 4th), two Sub-Saharan countries (Namibia, 6th and Rwanda, 7th, one country from Eastern Europe (the new entrant to the top 10, Lithuania, 8th), and another two Western European countries (Ireland, 9th, and Switzerland, 10th, another country in the top-10 for the first time).There is a relatively equitable distribution of available income, resources, and opportunities for men and women in these countries. The tremendous gender gaps are identified primarily in the Middle East, Africa, and South Asia.
Here, we can discuss the overall global gender gap scores across the index’s four main components : Economic Participation and Opportunity, Educational Attainment, Health and Survival, and Political Empowerment.
The indicators of the four main components are
(1) Economic Participation and Opportunity:
o Labour force participation rate,
o wage equality for similar work,
o estimated earned income,
o Legislators, senior officials, and managers,
o Professional and technical workers.
(2) Educational Attainment:
o Literacy rate (%)
o Enrollment in primary education (%)
o Enrollment in secondary education (%)
o Enrollment in tertiary education (%).
(3) Health and Survival:
o Sex ratio at birth (%)
o Healthy life expectancy (years).
(4) Political Empowerment:
o Women in Parliament (%)
o Women in Ministerial positions (%)
o Years with a female head of State (last 50 years)
o The share of tenure years.
The objective is to shed light on which factors are driving the overall average decline in the global gender gap score. The analysis results show that this year’s decline is mainly caused by a reversal in performance on the Political Empowerment gap.
Global Trends and Outcomes:
– Globally, this year, i.e., 2021, the average distance completed to gender parity gap is 68% (This means that the remaining gender gap to close stands at 32%) a step back compared to 2020 (-0.6 percentage points). These figures are mainly driven by a decline in the performance of large countries. On its current trajectory, it will now take 135.6 years to close the gender gap worldwide.
– The gender gap in Political Empowerment remains the largest of the four gaps tracked, with only 22% closed to date, having further widened since the 2020 edition of the report by 2.4 percentage points. Across the 156 countries covered by the index, women represent only 26.1% of some 35,500 Parliament seats and 22.6% of over 3,400 Ministers worldwide. In 81 countries, there has never been a woman head of State as of January 15, 2021. At the current rate of progress, the World Economic Forum estimates that it will take 145.5 years to attain gender parity in politics.
– The gender gap in Economic Participation and Opportunity remains the second-largest of the four key gaps tracked by the index. According to this year’s index results, 58% of this gap has been closed so far. The gap has seen marginal improvement since the 2020 edition of the report, and as a result, we estimate that it will take another 267.6 years to close.
– Gender gaps in Educational Attainment and Health and Survival are nearly closed. In Educational Attainment, 95% of this gender gap has been closed globally, with 37 countries already attaining gender parity. However, the ‘last mile’ of progress is proceeding slowly. The index estimates that it will take another 14.2 years to close this gap on its current trajectory completely.
In Health and Survival, 96% of this gender gap has been closed, registering a marginal decline since last year (not due to COVID-19), and the time to close this gap remains undefined. For both education and health, while progress is higher than economy and politics in the global data, there are important future implications of disruptions due to the pandemic and continued variations in quality across income, geography, race, and ethnicity.
India-Specific Findings:
India had slipped 28 spots to rank 140 out of the 156 countries covered. The pandemic causing a disproportionate impact on women jeopardizes rolling back the little progress made in the last decades-forcing more women to drop off the workforce and leaving them vulnerable to domestic violence.
India’s poor performance on the Global Gender Gap report card hints at a serious wake-up call and learning lessons from the Nordic region for the Government and policy makers.
Within the 156 countries covered, women hold only 26 percent of Parliamentary seats and 22 percent of Ministerial positions. India, in some ways, reflects this widening gap, where the number of Ministers declined from 23.1 percent in 2019 to 9.1 percent in 2021. The number of women in Parliament stands low at 14.4 percent. In India, the gender gap has widened to 62.5 %, down from 66.8% the previous year.
It is mainly due to women’s inadequate representation in politics, technical and leadership roles, a decrease in women’s labor force participation rate, poor healthcare, lagging female to male literacy ratio, and income inequality.
The gap is the widest on the political empowerment dimension, with economic participation and opportunity being next in line. However, the gap on educational attainment and health and survival has been practically bridged.
India is the third-worst performer among South Asian countries, with Pakistan and Afghanistan trailing and Bangladesh being at the top. The report states that the country fared the worst in political empowerment, regressing from 23.9% to 9.1%.
Its ranking on the health and survival dimension is among the five worst performers. The economic participation and opportunity gap saw a decline of 3% compared to 2020, while India’s educational attainment front is in the 114th position.
India has deteriorated to 51st place from 18th place in 2020 on political empowerment. Still, it has slipped to 155th position from 150th position in 2020 on health and survival, 151st place in economic participation and opportunity from 149th place, and 114th place for educational attainment from 112th.
In 2020 reports, among the 153 countries studied, India is the only country where the economic gender gap of 64.6% is larger than the political gender gap of 58.9%. In 2021 report, among the 156 countries, the economic gender gap of India is 67.4%, 3.8% gender gap in education, 6.3% gap in health and survival, and 72.4% gender gap in political empowerment. In health and survival, the gender gap of the sex ratio at birth is above 9.1%, and healthy life expectancy is almost the same.
Discrimination against women has also been reflected in Health and Survival subindex statistics. With 93.7% of this gap closed to date, India ranks among the bottom five countries in this subindex. The wide sex ratio at birth gaps is due to the high incidence of gender-based sex-selective practices. Besides, more than one in four women has faced intimate violence in her lifetime.The gender gap in the literacy rate is above 20.1%.
Yet, gender gaps persist in literacy : one-third of women are illiterate (34.2%) than 17.6% of men. In political empowerment, globally, women in Parliament is at 128th position and gender gap of 83.2%, and 90% gap in a Ministerial position. The gap in wages equality for similar work is above 51.8%. On health and survival, four large countries Pakistan, India, Vietnam, and China, fare poorly, with millions of women there not getting the same access to health as men.
The pandemic has only slowed down in its tracks the progress India was making towards achieving gender parity. The country urgently needs to focus on “health and survival,” which points towards a skewed sex ratio because of the high incidence of gender-based sex-selective practices and women’s economic participation. Women’s labour force participation rate and the share of women in technical roles declined in 2020, reducing the estimated earned income of women, one-fifth of men.
Learning from the Nordic region, noteworthy participation of women in politics, institutions, and public life is the catalyst for transformational change. Women need to be equal participants in the labour force to pioneer the societal changes the world needs in this integral period of transition.
Every effort must be directed towards achieving gender parallelism by facilitating women in leadership and decision-making positions. Social protection programmes should be gender-responsive and account for the differential needs of women and girls. Research and scientific literature also provide unequivocal evidence that countries led by women are dealing with the pandemic more effectively than many others.
Gendered inequality, thereby, is a global concern. India should focus on targeted policies and earmarked public and private investments in care and equalized access. Women are not ready to wait for another century for equality. It’s time India accelerates its efforts and fight for an inclusive, equal, global recovery.
India will not fully develop unless both women and men are equally supported to reach their full potential. There are risks, violations, and vulnerabilities women face just because they are women. Most of these risks are directly linked to women’s economic, political, social, and cultural disadvantages in their daily lives. It becomes acute during crises and disasters.
With the prevalence of gender discrimination, and social norms and practices, women become exposed to the possibility of child marriage, teenage pregnancy, child domestic work, poor education and health, sexual abuse, exploitation, and violence. Many of these manifestations will not change unless women are valued more.
[wptelegram-join-channel link=”https://t.me/s/upsctree” text=”Join @upsctree on Telegram”]2021 WEF Global Gender Gap report, which confirmed its 2016 finding of a decline in worldwide progress towards gender parity.
Over 2.8 billion women are legally restricted from having the same choice of jobs as men. As many as 104 countries still have laws preventing women from working in specific jobs, 59 countries have no laws on sexual harassment in the workplace, and it is astonishing that a handful of countries still allow husbands to legally stop their wives from working.
Globally, women’s participation in the labour force is estimated at 63% (as against 94% of men who participate), but India’s is at a dismal 25% or so currently. Most women are in informal and vulnerable employment—domestic help, agriculture, etc—and are always paid less than men.
Recent reports from Assam suggest that women workers in plantations are paid much less than men and never promoted to supervisory roles. The gender wage gap is about 24% globally, and women have lost far more jobs than men during lockdowns.
The problem of gender disparity is compounded by hurdles put up by governments, society and businesses: unequal access to social security schemes, banking services, education, digital services and so on, even as a glass ceiling has kept leadership roles out of women’s reach.
Yes, many governments and businesses had been working on parity before the pandemic struck. But the global gender gap, defined by differences reflected in the social, political, intellectual, cultural and economic attainments or attitudes of men and women, will not narrow in the near future without all major stakeholders working together on a clear agenda—that of economic growth by inclusion.
The WEF report estimates 135 years to close the gap at our current rate of progress based on four pillars: educational attainment, health, economic participation and political empowerment.
India has slipped from rank 112 to 140 in a single year, confirming how hard women were hit by the pandemic. Pakistan and Afghanistan are the only two Asian countries that fared worse.
Here are a few things we must do:
One, frame policies for equal-opportunity employment. Use technology and artificial intelligence to eliminate biases of gender, caste, etc, and select candidates at all levels on merit. Numerous surveys indicate that women in general have a better chance of landing jobs if their gender is not known to recruiters.
Two, foster a culture of gender sensitivity. Take a review of current policies and move from gender-neutral to gender-sensitive. Encourage and insist on diversity and inclusion at all levels, and promote more women internally to leadership roles. Demolish silos to let women grab potential opportunities in hitherto male-dominant roles. Work-from-home has taught us how efficiently women can manage flex-timings and productivity.
Three, deploy corporate social responsibility (CSR) funds for the education and skilling of women and girls at the bottom of the pyramid. CSR allocations to toilet building, the PM-Cares fund and firms’ own trusts could be re-channelled for this.
Four, get more women into research and development (R&D) roles. A study of over 4,000 companies found that more women in R&D jobs resulted in radical innovation. It appears women score far higher than men in championing change. If you seek growth from affordable products and services for low-income groups, women often have the best ideas.
Five, break barriers to allow progress. Cultural and structural issues must be fixed. Unconscious biases and discrimination are rampant even in highly-esteemed organizations. Establish fair and transparent human resource policies.
Six, get involved in local communities to engage them. As Michael Porter said, it is not possible for businesses to sustain long-term shareholder value without ensuring the welfare of the communities they exist in. It is in the best interest of enterprises to engage with local communities to understand and work towards lowering cultural and other barriers in society. It will also help connect with potential customers, employees and special interest groups driving the gender-equity agenda and achieve better diversity.