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HomePosts Tagged "Farmer Producer Organizations"
Climate, Environment, Schemes - Govt, Sustainability, Sustainable Energy

According to Deputy Chief Minister K V Singh Deo, Odisha is poised to take the lead in sustainable and inclusive agricultural reforms with the goal of creating a resilient agricultural future where all farmers may prosper

Deo, who oversees the agriculture portfolio, emphasized the State’s dedication to equitable agricultural growth in his remarks at a Policy Roundtable on “Advancing Inclusive Agricultural Transformation in Odisha” on Friday. According to him, market connections are crucial to small-holder farmers’ empowerment. The Deputy Chief Minister stated, “We are making sure that farmers have improved access to fair markets through Farmer Producer Organizations, allowing them to secure fair prices and improve their livelihoods.”

According to Singh Deo, “We are attempting to proceed with the opinions and viewpoints of the subject matter experts. All of the State’s agricultural demands will be met by us. We have concluded that the State needs a new agri-cultural policy, and I have asked the Principal Secretary to consult with all relevant departments, including Water Resources, Labor, and Fishing and Animal Husbandry. We are going to develop a comprehensive agricultural policy.”

Singh Deo participated in the Policy Roundtable organized by the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) and the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) to discuss ways to advance Inclusive Agricultural Transformation (IAT) in Odisha with other academics and thought leaders. “We want to work together to build a resilient and inclusive future for our agriculture industry,” he stated.

He presided over a high-level conference to finalize Krushi Odisha 2025 preparations earlier on December 19 at Lok Seva Bhavan. “The goal of this historic occasion is to transform the agricultural landscape of Odisha. The significance of using Statewide registration camps to integrate farmers into the Agristack database was brought up in discussions. He also examined the proposed budget for the Agriculture department, emphasizing strategic measures to support the growth of agriculture and the empowerment of Odisha’s farmers.

The Department of Agriculture and Farmers’ Empowerment’s Principal Secretary, Arabinda Kumar Padhee, emphasized the industry’s emphasis on inclusivity and innovation. He emphasized the necessity of scaling effective tactics to guarantee farmers’ real gains and establish Odisha as a leader in sustainable farming methods. The agriculture industry in Odisha is a leader in sustainability, inclusion, and innovation. We are expanding these achievements and making sure that our common goal benefits all farmers. “By working together, we can transform Odisha into a model state for inclusive and sustainable agricultural growth,” Padhee stated.

According to Deputy Chief Minister K V

Company News

ITC, present in around 22 states through FPOs (Farmer Producer Organizations) and working on 20 crops, has plans to expand and deepen it further

ITC is expanding its network of FPOs, further aiming to connect one crore farmers in the next 4-5 years and scaling up sourcing of fruits and vegetables through this platform, said its Agri Business Division CEO S Ganesh Kumar.

ITC, present in around 22 states through FPOs (Farmer Producer Organizations) and working on 20 crops, has plans to expand and deepen it further in states including Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Haryana, Punjab and Bihar.

Besides, ITC is working on expanding the reach of its super app MAARS — a phygital’ initiative with FPOs through which it is providing personalised advisories to farmers from weather forecast to sales of crops at mandi prices, supply of seeds and fertiliser and services as soil testing to helping them get credit from banks.

Through MAARS (Metamarket for Advanced Agriculture Rural Services), ITC is also enhancing agricultural practices to small farmers through technology aggregation, AI-enabled solutions, AgTech and an e-marketplace for commodities and inputs.

“This agri stack and the FPO collectivization is today, at about 1,600 and our ambition is to take it to 4,000 and 10 million farmers in next 4 to 5 years, S Ganesh Kumar told PTI.

ITC is now expanding these FPOs beyond the purchase of traditional crops such as wheat, paddy, maize, soya, chilli and cumins to green peas, mangoes, fruits and green vegetables through a cluster-based approach, he added. These FPOs, formed through the collectivisation of small and marginal farmers for handling agri-related activities, have now become a centre of economic activities in those regions and now ITC is trying to integrate them with the benefits of modern technology and science. Here ITC’s endeavour, under its NexGen Agri vision, is to make small farmers aware of the probable impact of climate change on crop zones and durations, the need for soil rejuvenation, and the importance of crop rotation etc.

“They get the benefits of science, the better inputs in terms of seeds and various other inputs at all the crop stages, supported with an agri tech solutions MAARS,…” he said adding “now farmers are also realising that technology is benefiting them and their economic activity is increasing.”

ITC is the largest corporate house working directly with farmers, helping them improve the productivity and quality of various crops. Its revenue from the ‘Agri Business’ division was at Rs 16,124 crore in FY24, contributing nearly one-fifth to its total revenue.

“At present, around 40 per cent of ITC’s agri procurement from relevant hubs of the 10 states where MAARS has been rolled out, is sourced through MAARS,” he said.

Under NexGen Agri’s vision, which is a part of the ITC Next Strategy, it is also integrating MAARS with startups, where viable agritech solutions will provide efficient grassroots solutions.

It is also encouraging smart practices such as broad bed furrow, use of technology as drones for efficient use of fertiliser and resilient varietals, soil conservation and water stewardship under its Climate Smart Agri initiatives.

“I also believe that as we work closely with the farmer, we will be able to extend more value into that system, in upgrading their produce into residue-free, organic where there are premiums…and introduce varieties, he said.

ITC started the brand Aashirvaad, which is now an over Rs 6,000 crore brand, by directly sourcing wheat from farmers, through its e-choupal network. Now ITC has emerged as the second largest purchaser of wheat after the government-led agencies.

According to Ganesh, this is a win-win situation and “that is how we will be able to build our brands around the theme of quality in the FMCG space.

Now besides Aashirvaad, several of its own in-house brands as Bingo, Farmland, B Natural, Sunrise, Sunfeast etc are part of ITC’s demand-driven agri value chain.

These are our farm level crop connects that we have built over 23-25 years when our FMCG portfolio was launched as a back end support and over a period of this journey, it has also evolved from e-Chaupal to FPOs. Today, we have about 1,660 FPOs with 1.7 million farmers, said Ganesh. Through MAARS, ITC has brought price transparency by connecting the various Mandi price.

“The marriage of all this helps us give precise local, hyper-local solutions to farmers’ problems. Apart from that, relationships that we have built with the agricultural institutes of this country in bringing in good quality seeds and introducing new varieties…have benefited local farmers,” he added.

Through MAARS, ITC is looking to help the farmer with technologies as artificial intelligence (AI). It is in the process of collecting data.

Our software is at a nascent stage, but we will keep layering and collecting the data. The five, seven years of data of a particular geography will definitely help in giving the farmer a better solution in the years to come because it is predictive in that sense,” he said.

ITC, present in around 22 states through

AgroPolicy, Agrotech, E-commerce, India

Credit Guarantee issued to 1,101 FPOs worth guaranted coverage of Rs 246.0 crore covering more than 10.2 lakh farmers.

Almost 5 thousand out of 8,000 registered Farmer Producer Organizations (FPOs) have been registered on Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC) portal for selling the produce online to consumers across the country. The onboarding of FPOs on ONDC to reach out to their buyers in any part of the country is in line with the Central government objective of providing growers with better market access. The move aims to empower FPOs with direct access to digital marketing, online payment, business-to-business and business-to-consumer transactions.  Over 8,000 FPOs have been registered against government target of 10,000 under a new Central Sector Scheme titled “Formation and Promotion of 10,000 Farmer Produce Organizations (FPOs)” launched in 2020 with budgetary provision of Rs 6,865 crore. Aggregation of small, marginal and landless farmers into FPOs help enhance economic strength & market linkages of farmers for enhancing their income. FPOs facilitate farmers with access to improved technology, credit, better input and more markets to incentivize them to produce better quality commodity.

FPOs are provided financial assistance up to Rs 18.00 lakh per FPO for a period of 3 years. In addition to this, provision has been made for matching equity grant up to Rs. 2,000 per farmer member of FPO with a limit of Rs 15.00 lakh per FPO and a credit guarantee facility up to Rs. 2 crore of project loan per FPO from eligible lending institution to ensure institutional credit accessibility to FPOs. So far, Credit Guarantee has been issued to 1,101 FPOs worth guaranted coverage of Rs 246.0 crore covering more than 10.2 lakh farmers.  Matching equity grant amounting to Rs 145.1 crore has been transferred directly to the bank account of the eligible 3,187 FPOs.

Formation & promotion of FPOs is the first step for converting Krishi into Atmanirbhar Krishi. The initiative enhances cost effective production and productivity and higher net incomes to the member of the FPO. It also improves rural economy and create job opportunities for rural youths in villages itself. This was the major step towards improving farmers’ income substantially.

FPOs are to be developed in produce clusters, wherein agricultural and horticultural produces are grown / cultivated for leveraging economies of scale and improving market access for members. “One District One Product” cluster to promote specialization and better processing, marketing, branding & export.  Further Agriculture value chain organizations forming FPOs and facilitating 60% of market linkages for members produce.

The key objectives of the scheme are:

To provide holistic and broad-based supportive ecosystem to form new 10,000 FPOs to facilitate development of and sustainable income-oriented farming and for overall socio-economic development and wellbeing of agrarian communities.

To enhance productivity through efficient, cost-effective and sustainable resource use and realize higher returns through better liquidity and market linkages for their produce and become sustainable through collective action.

To provide handholding and support to new FPOs up to 5 years from the year of creation in all aspects of management of FPO, inputs, production, processing and value addition, market linkages, credit linkages and use of technology etc.

To provide effective capacity building to FPOs to develop agriculture-entrepreneurship skills to become economically viable and self-sustaining beyond the period of support from government.

FPOs can be registered either under Part IXA of Companies Act or under Co-operative Societies.

Credit Guarantee issued to 1,101 FPOs worth

AgroPolicy, Agrotech, IT

 Government is providing assistance up to Rs 75 Lakh per mandi for creating infrastructure under e-NAM platform

Government had launched FPO trading module during Covid-19 pandemic to enable FPOs to upload their produce from collection centres/ farm gate with picture/ quality parameter for online bidding without physically bringing their produce to the mandis. So far, 2177 FPOs have been onboarded on National Agriculture Market (e-NAM) platform.

On 14th July, 2022, the Department of Agriculture & Farmers Welfare launched the Platform of Platforms (PoP) under e-NAM which involves integration of various service providers platform/ on boarding of service providers such as trading, transportation, sorting, grading, Fintech, warehousing and other aspects of value chain etc. to enhance farmers accessibility digitally to multiple number of buyers, service providers etc. PoP will enable Farmers, FPOs, Traders and other stakeholders to access a range of services offered by multiple service providers, thereby increasing choice to the stakeholders.

Further the e-NAM platform is made interoperable with Rashtriya e-Market Services Private Limited (ReMS) platform of Government of Karnataka which will facilitate famers of both platforms to sell their produce in other platform thereby increasing their market access.

Under the e-NAM scheme, Government of India is providing assistance up to Rs 75 Lakh per mandi for related hardware/ infrastructure including for quality assaying equipment and for creation of infrastructure like cleaning, grading, sorting, packaging and compost unit etc. An established quality assaying lab in e-NAM mandis is a requisite for Agricultural Produce Market Committees (APMCs) that assess and certify the quality of produce, which helps famers in getting prices commensurate with quality of their produce. Further, provision has been made in FPO trading module wherein FPOs can upload their produce from collection centres/ farm gate with picture/ quality parameters.

 Government is providing assistance up to Rs

AgroPolicy, Finance, Schemes - Govt

The grant will benefit about 3.5 lakh farmers leading to the goal of setting up of 10,000 FPOs.

 The Union Minister of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare, Narendra Singh Tomar released an equity grant of more than Rs 37 crore to 1,018 FPOs under the CSS which will benefit about 3.5 lakh farmers leading to the goal of setting up of 10 thousand FPOs. The Producer Members’ equity, supplemented by a similar equity grant from the Central Government, would strengthen the financial base of the FPOs and help them to avail loans from financial institutions for their projects and working capital requirements for business development. Under the scheme, up to Rs. 18 lakh financial aid per FPO will be provided for a period of 3 years. In addition, a loan of Rs. 2,000 for each farmer member of the FPO within a limit of Rs.15 lakh per FPO will be available. There is also a provision of project loan or equivalent grant from any eligible lending institution of up to Rs.2 crore per FPO.

Besides Tomar, the dignitaries present included the Chief Minister of Karnataka, Basavaraj Bommai, Union Minister of Chemicals & Fertilizers and Health & Family Welfare, Dr Mansukh Mandaviya, Union Ministers of State for Agriculture and Farmers Welfare, Shobha Karandlaje and Kailash Choudhary, Agriculture Minister of Karnataka, BC Patil, State Ministers, Union Agriculture Secretary Manoj Ahuja and other senior officers.

Coffee Table Book on e-NAM

The Coffee Table Book released by the Agriculture minister showcases the endeavor and journey of e-NAM in bringing transparency and efficiency in the trade of agricultural products in the country through innovation and technology. Coffee Table Book on e-NAM focuses on showcasing the benefits and success of farmers and stakeholders by facilitating digitization of APMC mandis.

The grant will benefit about 3.5 lakh

Agrotech, Finance, Start ups

Hydenmet plans to capture a majority of the small and marginal farmers segment

Bengaluru-based start up Hydenmet, has raised $150k from angel investors through ah! Ventures Angel platform.

Hydenmet was incorporated in 2019 and won the state of Bihar as their customer in August 2019 when they developed a mobile application called ‘Indravajra’ for detection and early warning of lightning and dangerous thunderstorms.

Hydenmet plans to capture a majority of the small and marginal farmers segment, which has been ignored by all largest agritech players by creating a unique per acre per year pricing model for a range of support services offered to farmers working with Farmer Producer Organizations (FPOs). Hydenmet has 3-year contracts signed with over 25 FPOs covering 50,000 acres of cultivation spread over 3 states since 2021 February. Of the 100 million acres of cultivation in India by small & marginal farmers, even if Hydenmet gets 5 per cent in the next few years, they can see revenues of Rs 2000 crores per year.

Hydenmet plans to capture a majority of

AgroPolicy

PM will also release an equity grant of more than Rs 14 crore to about 351 Farmer Producer Organizations

Prime Minister, Narendra Modi has planned to release the 10th installment of financial benefit under the Pradhan Mantri Kisan Samman Nidhi (PM-KISAN) scheme on January 1, 2022, on an online mode via video conferencing.

Moving ahead, the scheme will also enable the transfer of Rs 20,000 crore or more to the 10 crore plus beneficiary farmer families. The main agenda of this scheme was to empower the grassroots level farmers, by hearing and resolving the problems they face.

PM-KISAN scheme provides a yearly benefit of Rs 6000 to the eligible beneficiary farmer families, payable in three equal four-monthly installments of Rs 2000 each. The fund is transferred directly to the bank accounts of the beneficiaries. In this scheme, Samman Rashi of over Rs 1.6 lakh crore has been transferred to farmer families so far.

During the programme, PM will also release an equity grant of more than Rs 14 crore to about 351 Farmer Producer Organizations (FPOs), which will benefit more than 1.24 lakh farmers. Prime Minister will also interact with FPOs during the event while addressing the nation.

PM will also release an equity grant