Amaravati, Oct 24 (IANS): To protect farmers from middlemen, the Andhra Pradesh government has enabled them to register their agricultural produce in advance to sell it at procurement centres, so that the support price can be credited directly into the farmers' accounts.

Some 75,805 farmers have already registered their crops on the Comprehensive Monitoring of Agriculture Prices and Procurement (CMAPP) portal for this kharif season.

Six crops such as maize, bajra, ragi, korra, cotton and onion have been registered for crop procurement through Marketing Federation Limited (MARKFED).

"Due to heavy rains and floods, farmers are concentrating on safeguarding their crops, considering which the government extended registration date till October 26," said a senior Agriculture Marketing department official.

The government expects more registrations from farmers by the end of the registration date, he added.

He said, "To enable farmers to sell their agriculture produce at their village level, Agricultural Marketing department is taking measures to set up more number of procurement centres across the state."

According to him, for the first time in Andhra Pradesh, 8,256 procurement centres have been set up in linkage with Rythu Bharosa Kendras (RBKs) across the state to procure crops in the current kharif season.

Farmers are required to register their details at RBKs before selling their produce at the procurement centres.

Once the registration is done, farmers' details will be fed into the procurement centre's online database, following which farmers will directly start receiving information on their mobile phones.

Payments will be credited to farmers' accounts within 10 days of procurement.