Identification and Analysis of Problems Faced by Stakeholders in the Existing Grain Market System

Abstract: Agriculture markets remain essential interfaces between farmers, intermediaries, buyers and public market authorities, yet their operational performance is often constrained by manual handling, congestion, uneven infrastructure and incomplete use of digital trading services. This study identifies and compares the problems experienced by three stakeholder groups in the existing grain market system in Haryana and Punjab, India. A structured questionnaire survey produced 290 usable responses: 200 farmers, 60 commission agents/traders and 30 grain-market office staff. Responses were summarized through frequencies, percentages and cross-stakeholder comparisons. Strong agreement was observed on labour dependence (86.50–100.00%), time-consuming weighing and packing (90.50–100.00%), and congestion associated with inadequate storage and transportation (96.50–96.67%). Awareness of e-NAM was also widely viewed as a barrier to adoption (75.00–83.34%). Perceptions diverged on the complexity of the e-NAM sale process and online- payment delays: farmers and traders reported greater difficulty, whereas office staff largely rejected these concerns. Infrastructure and resource-management gaps were visible in responses concerning electricity, connectivity, quality- testing facilities, lighting and water management. The findings show that digitizing auction and payment alone does not remove physical-process bottlenecks in the market yard. The paper contributes a stakeholder-aligned problem taxonomy and identifies operational priorities for market modernization: mechanized handling, transparent digital weighing and assaying, queue and logistics management, assisted digital services, and monitored infrastructure. Because the study uses non-probability field access and aggregated self-reports from two states, the results should be interpreted as diagnostic rather than nationally representative.

Keywords: agricultural marketing; grain market; e-NAM; stakeholder analysis; farmers; commission agents; market infrastructure; digital agriculture