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HomePosts Tagged "FPO"
Acts & Schemes – Centre, AgroPolicy, Foodgrains, India, People, Vegetables

If FPOs are successful in making farmers wealthy and debt-free, a single farmer will not commit suicide in Vidarbha.

At a recent workshop organised for FPOs in Vidarbha at the 13th Agrovision exhibition, Nitin Gadkari, Union Minister of Road Transport and Highways said, “Farmer’s Producer Companies (FPC) should work to make farmers prosperous, wealthy, debt-free, and happy. If FPOs are successful in making farmers wealthy and debt-free. In that case, a single farmer will not commit suicide in Vidarbha”.

Gadkari advised farmers to form companies to market and export their products.  Sharad Gadakh, Vice Chancellor of Dr Panjabrao Deshmukh Agriculture University, Ravi Boratkar, Organising Secretary of Agrovision and Publisher of AgroSpectrum magazine, C D Mayee, Chairman, Advisory committee Agrovision, Ajay Kadu, General Manager, Agricultural Market Committee, Nagpur and other delegates were present at the conference. 

Gadkari said, “FPO is a power of Farmers; with the help of FPOs, farmers can sell their products, without depending on the government. FPO is the social economic transformation of farmers. Farmers should get training in the formation of FPO and market their products. Farmers should find their own market. Five thousand FPOs should be formed in Vidarbha for the development of farmers”.

Ajay Kadu advised farmers on forming FPOs. Till now 27 agro products in Maharashtra have received GI tags. 11 crops in Maharashtra including four from Vidarbha are part of the Maharashtra Agri-Business Network (MAGNET) Project. MAGNET-focused crops are Banana, Guava, Pomegranate, Sapota, Custard Apple, Strawberry, Orange, Sweet lime, Okra, Chilly (Green and Red), and floriculture crops. The state government collaborates with the Asian Development Bank for MAGNET. The Rs 1,000-crore project, which is aimed mainly at fruit and vegetable producers, aims to improve processing and minimise the losses in the perishables sector. Successful FPO owners were honoured by Gadkari.    

If FPOs are successful in making farmers

Acts & Schemes – Centre, AgroPolicy, India, Trade

The National Bee Board (NBB) organised a workshop on ‘Strengthening of Export Potential of Honey’ at Vaikunth Mehta National Institute of Cooperative Management (VAMNICOM), Pune, Maharashtra. Dr Abhilaksh Likhi, additional secretary, Ministry of Agriculture & Farmers Welfare, Department of Agriculture & Farmers Welfare, chaired the workshop. Dr Likhi launched bee wax products manufactured by FPOs during the workshop wherein it was also decided to establish a cooperative honey project at VAMNICOM.  The workshop also gave a platform for honey processors, exporters, FPOs and agri start ups to share their experiences about the future strategies for export promotion of honey.

India is one of the major honey exporting countries in the world and has exported 74,413 MT of honey worth Rs. 1221.17 crore during 2021-22. More than 50 per cent of the honey production in India is being exported to about 83 countries including major markets like USA, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Bangladesh and Canada.  Some of the major varieties of honey exported are mustard honey, eucalyptus honey, lychee honey, sunflower honey, pongamia honey, multi-flora Himalayan honey, acacia honey and wild flora honey. 

India has around 12,699 beekeepers and 19.34 lakh honey bee colonies registered with the National Bee Board at present and produces about 1,33,200 metric tonne of honey, as per the 2021-22 second advance estimate. A total 102 projects worth Rs. 133.31 crore have been sanctioned under the National Beekeeping and Honey Mission (NBHM) till date. Under the scheme of ‘Formation of 10,000 Farmer Producer Organisations’, 100 FPOs of beekeepers/ honey producers have been allotted to TRIFED (14), NAFED (60) and NDDB (26) for the implementation of activities under NBHM. The Ministry of Agriculture & Farmers Welfare has also developed an online portal, Madhukranti, to maintain traceability records of honey and other beehive products.

The National Bee Board (NBB) organised a

Acts & Schemes – Centre, AgroPolicy, Agrotech, Foodgrains, India, Start ups, Trade

The United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) has declared 2023 as the International Year of Millets, with 72 countries supporting India’s proposal at the initiative of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. To commemorate this, the University of Agricultural Sciences, Raichur and NABARD recently held a two-day Millets Conclave in collaboration with the agriculture and allied departments.

Issues related to nutritious cereal production and value addition were discussed with the farmers, FPOs, entrepreneurs, Agri startups, investors, exporters, agricultural scientists, NABARD and lead banks and agricultural development departments.

On this occasion, the Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman announced several awards including three first prizes of one crore rupees each as an incentive to Agri Startups participating in the Millets Innovation Challenge, while Narendra Singh Tomar, the Union Minister of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare said, “The time has come to give Millets a respectable place in the plate of food not only in India but across the world. We have to bring forth the importance of nutritious grains to the world”.

Promotion of millets not only meets the food requirements, but will also give an opportunity to new startups to bring their products to the world. Which increases employment opportunities, especially women can engage themselves in work from millet production to processing. Today, India is the major producer of millets in the world, with Karnataka being a major contributor. Millet production is beneficial to the farmers. It requires very little water, and can be produced even on rocky land.

Under the Millet Innovation Challenge, the Finance Minister bestows Rs one crore each to Agri Startups for their distinctive contribution. Besides, awards of Rs 20 lakh are given to 15 Agri Startups and Rs 10 lakh each to 15 other Agri Startups. She also announced a fund of Rs 25 crore to the University of Agricultural Sciences, Raichur from NABARD for millet research.

The United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) has

Finance

This partnership will enable Samunnati to scale its outreach to FPOs with customised financial solutions at affordable interest rates, leveraging the vast resources available with SBI

Samunnati, India’s Open Agri Network has entered into the largest co-lending partnership in India aimed at the Farmer Producer Organisation (FPO) space with SBI, India’s largest bank. The initial programme amount is Rs 100 Crores. 

This partnership will enable Samunnati to scale its outreach to FPOs with customised financial solutions at affordable interest rates, leveraging the vast resources available with SBI. The partnership will enhance the outreach for SBI channel credit to the under-served segment of small-holder farmers in the agriculture sector, by leveraging Samunnati’s outreach and nuanced understanding of the FPO sector. 

SBI and Samunnati has also entered into a non-financial MOU to develop the FPO Sector, to mainstream FPO as an asset class and increase awareness of this class of farmer-owned institutions in the Banking sector. 

Samunnati works with a growing network of 3000+ Farmer Collectives with a member base of over 6 million farmers with solutions spanning Agri Finance, Agri Commerce, and advisory services.  Speaking to the Founder & CEO of Samunnati, Anil Kumar SG said, “SBI’s pan-India presence and deep interest in Financial Inclusion of the small-holder farmers are enablers for helping an FPO avail an array of financial services. Our collective ambition is to make markets work for smallholder farmers by making available adequate, affordable and timely credit to the FPOs.”

This partnership will enable Samunnati to scale

Interaction

Tamil Nadu-based Samunnati has recently launched the Annadata Suraksha Abhiyaan, a dedicated crowd-sourcing campaign driven via Samunnati’s corporate social responsibility outreach. Pravesh Sharma, Director, Samunnati Agro shares insights on the aspects related to ‘Annadata Suraksha Abhiyaan’- major activities, challenges and latest launches

What are the major activities completed around ‘Annadata Suraksha Abhiyaan’ in the past 3 months?

To free farmers from the vulnerabilities of personal risks in agriculture, and to promote the culture of insurance across rural India, especially smallholder farmers, Samunnati launched the Annadata Suraksha Abhiyaan on October 2, 2021. We partnered with Milaap, our crowdfunding partner, for this initiative and have raised close to Rs 1 lakh via their platform. We also reached out to various CSR partners and corporate through our larger network to promote awareness about this platform, as well as to invite their contributions towards this noble cause. We are in discussions with a few other leading agri-tech companies to understand how we can work with them to create a bigger socio-economic impact. On the ground, Farmer Producer Organisations (FPOs) are our last mile partners to reach individual member farmers and deliver product information, enable documentation and assist in claim settlement.

We have raised over Rs 11.5 lakhs in support of this initiative from various sources, including a payroll campaign conducted internally within Samunnati. Through social media handles dedicated to the initiative, we are sustaining our efforts to bring in more participation from Indian corporates and philanthropists.

What are the challenges that Samunnati faced/is facing while rolling out the programme to beneficiaries?

Data collection has been one of the biggest challenges that the Indian agriculture sector has struggled with over the years. Gathering demographic details of individuals including date of birth, contact number, address with pin code, gender, etc. plays a huge role in being able to provide insurance. Unfortunately, this level of detail is not regularly maintained by most of the FPOs in our nation. Further, owing to constraints with staff and other resources, undertaking data collection has also not been an easy task for FPOs.

On-ground activation and awareness building play an important role in the success of such campaigns. As we work around the ongoing pandemic and various restrictions that have been put in place, we are streamlining our efforts to promote the campaign via offline channels in the coming months.

Number of farmers/ FPOs onboarded to the insurance programme and the markets where ASA created the most impact.

To date, we have onboarded around 12,000 farmers from 40 FPOs across 11 States. A majority of these farmers are from Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, and Maharashtra owing to our extensive network in these regions. In Gujarat, we have a long-standing association with GujPro which helped us make in-roads in reaching farmers in the region.

How does your company plan to deliver this scheme to India’s smallholder farmers?

Samunnati plans to partner with farmer collectives (FPCs, Cooperatives etc.) and agri enterprises which closely work with small holder farmers to take this scheme to the last mile. We believe this approach is more sustainable, and scalable. So far, we have on-boarded 40+ FPOs, and 1 Agri enterprise and insured 12,000 farmers.

How can Samunnati bring in a revolution in the agri community through ASA?

India is plagued with the following two challenges:

High incidence of farmer accidents and related fatalities – 2000 plus farming accidents and over 100+ fatalities happen every day, leading to estimated daily losses worth Rs 15Cr

Negligible insurance penetration, less than 1 per cent farmers having access to accident-related insurance

Agriculture in itself is plagued with variety of risks and challenges, while a few government/ private sector initiatives are working towards addressing some of them, initiatives around insurance, and farmer protection from financial distress related to accidents are insignificant. 

The initiative Annadata Suraksha Abhiyaan attempts to fill that void by promoting the insurance culture among farmers and providing personal accident coverage through this initiative. We plan to expand the scale and scope of coverage and include risks related to other farming uncertainties in the years to come.

The initiative aims to make agriculture risk free for our farmers, and for India.

What are your plans for the next five years?
We plan to onboard as many as 5 million farmer families on this platform in the next 5 years. We will be approaching this in phases, mapping the progress we achieve each year.

Pooja Yadav

pooja.yadav@mmactiv.com

Tamil Nadu-based Samunnati has recently launched the Annadata

Start ups

Dr Abhilaksh Likhi has invited the start-ups and FPOs to submit their proposals

As part of India’s efforts to showcase the country’s investment-friendly policies and growth opportunities in agriculture and allied sectors at EXPO2020 Dubai, Dr Abhilaksh Likhi, Additional Secretary, Ministry of Agriculture & Farmers Welfare, has invited the start-ups and FPOs (Farmer Producer Organisations) to submit their proposals to the ministry, and assured them that they would be considered for providing equity grants, management costs, and other available support measures. Dr Likhi suggested this at the inauguration of ‘Food, Agriculture and livelihood’ fortnight at the India Pavilion in EXPO2020 Dubai.

Shubha Thakur, Joint Secretary (Crops & Oil Seeds), Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare, T R Kesavan Group President (Corporate Relations & Alliances) Tractors and Farm Equipment Ltd (TAFE), Srinivas Kuchibhotla, Partner, KPMG, among other officials from the ministry also attended the event.

The ‘Food, Agriculture and Livelihood’ fortnight (February 17th – March 2nd) will comprise various sessions which will be presided over by representatives from the Ministry of Agriculture & Farmers Welfare, Ministry of Fisheries, Animal Husbandry & Dairying, Ministry of Cooperation.

On the theme for the first week of the fortnight, that is, millets, Shubha Thakur said, “Millets is an important area for us, and we would like to utilise this global platform to learn about the health and nutritional aspects of millets and bring back the glory of millets.”

India produces all the nine commonly known millets and is the largest producer and second-largest exporter of millets globally.

During the launch of the ‘Millet’ theme as part of the ‘Food, Agriculture and Livelihood’ fortnight at the sector floor at the India Pavilion, the delegation led by Dr Likhi unveiled the Millet Book comprising nutritious and delightful recipes made using millets. The delegation also launched the first ‘Millet food festival’, during which the visitors will get to relish the healthy and nutritious delicacies prepared using the millets.

Dr Abhilaksh Likhi has invited the start-ups

Agrotech

The company plans to impact the lives of 1 crore farmers by 2025 by leveraging its tech infrastructure

Unnati, a FinTech-driven agriculture ecosystem, however, has stayed well ahead in terms of utilising FPOs and robust tech infrastructure to enhance farmers’ lives and revolutionise the agriculture sector. The latest announcements by the government will help further the platform’s work and create a robust Agri ecosystem in India.

Giving farmers access to tech-led business solutions to enhance their economic strengths and market linkages, Unnati empowers them through FPOs, thereby increasing farmers’ overall income. The platform equips FPOs to leverage their collective strengths and bargaining power to access financial and non-financial farm inputs, services, and technologies to optimise transaction costs and tap into high-value markets.

Furthermore, Unnati has envisaged impacting small farmers by directly supporting FPOs through a host of services, including digital payments, banking, output sale, loans, brand promotions, and agri advisory and farm predictions.

Commenting on Unnati’s FPO partnership and the government’s latest policies, Amit Sinha, Co-Founder of Unnati, said, “Unnati has been committed to building a robust ecosystem where farmers can gain easy access to the market, know their inputs and increase the quality of their yield. We have partnered with FPOs to do the same. The latest policies announced by the government will help us take this to the next level and create a robust agriculture ecosystem where farmers can reap the benefits of having access to a technologically sound working system. On the back of the Budget, we will continue to work towards the betterment of farmers’ lives through a digital agri network.”

Unnati plans to partner with 10k+ FPOs which will subsequently impact the lives of 1 crore farmers by the year 2025.

The company plans to impact the lives

Agrotech, Environment, Finance

Hits the Rs 10,000 crores Gross Transactional Value (GTV) mark across its agri commerce and agri finance business

Agritech firm Samunnati is setting up weather stations for Farmer Producer Organisations (FPOs) to collect data that can be used to structure insurance products for the members of these collectives.

Recently Samunnati had hit the Rs 10,000 crores Gross Transactional Value (GTV) mark across its agri commerce and agri finance business. Furthermore, 50 per cent of this GTV came in over the last 18 months, the company said in a statement.

Anil Kumar SG, Founder and CEO, Samunnati, “Currently, we work with about 1500 FPOs or farmer collectives. The cumulative membership is about 6 million smallholder farmers. We don’t work with 6 million, but they have a membership base and it is growing. On the demand side, we work with about 3500 agri enterprises. We see a lot of traction in terms of making the value chains operate at a higher equilibrium by removing the working capital constraint.”

Hits the Rs 10,000 crores Gross Transactional

Bee keeping

NBHM has the aim to create a network of honey testing labs covering all parts of the country and for this 100 FPOs of beekeepers will be proved as the centre.

National Bee Board (NBB) has organised a National Conference on Beekeeping Sector in collaboration with National Agricultural Cooperative Marketing Federation of India Limited (NAFED), Tribal Cooperative Marketing Development Federation of India Limited (TRIFED) & National Dairy Development Board (NDDB) on January 24, 2022. More than 600 participants from Government as well as the private sector, State Agricultural Universities (SAUs)/Central Agricultural Universities (CAUs), Beekeepers and other stakeholders involved in beekeeping occupation, etc attended the conference.

During the conference Dr Abhilaksh Likhi, Additional Secretary, Ministry of Agriculture & Farmers Welfare, Government of India spoke on National Beekeeping & Honey Mission (NBHM), a central sector scheme launched by Government of India for overall promotion & development of scientific beekeeping in the country.

Likhi expressed that NBHM will help in filling gaps in infrastructural facilities for honey and linking marginal beekeepers in an organised way for dealing with adulteration in honey. NBHM has the aim to create a network of honey testing labs covering all parts of the country and for this 100 FPOs of beekeepers will be proved as the centre. He suggested including honey FPO beekeeping society/cooperative/firms for better sustainability in the honey sector.

NBHM has the aim to create a

Agro chems – Pesticides, Agrotech

The SOP for drone regulation for pesticide application covers important aspects like statutory provisions, flying permissions, area distance restrictions, overcrowded areas restriction, drone registration, safety insurance, operation plan, air flight zones, weather conditions etc.

The Union Minister Narendra Singh Tomar, during the release of Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) for drone application in Agriculture, has said that under the leadership of Prime Minister Modi all policies since 2014 are aimed at doubling farmer’s income by 2022. He said that the formation of Farmer Producer Organisation (FPOs) and the Agriculture Infrastructure Fund (AIF) will bring about a revolution in the lives of small farmers.

The Minister further, informed that the drones were used for the first time in warding off the locust attacks in various states of the country. He said that the government is making continuous efforts to infuse new technologies in agriculture so as to provide sustainable solution in context of enhancing the productivity as well as efficiency of the agriculture sector.

The SOP for drone regulation for pesticide application covers important aspects like statutory provisions, flying permissions, area distance restrictions, weight classification, overcrowded areas restriction, drone registration, safety insurance, piloting certification, operation plan, air flight zones, weather conditions, SOPs for pre, post and during operation, emergency handling plan.

Considering the unique advantages of Drone technologies in agriculture, the Ministry of Agriculture & Farmers Welfare, (Department of Agriculture & Farmers Welfare) in consultation with all the stakeholders of this sector, has brought out Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) for use of drones in pesticide and nutrient application that provides concise instructions for effective and safe operations of drones.

During the release of SOPs event in the Agriculture Ministry, Secretary Agriculture Sanjay Agarwal delivered an address on advantages of drone technologies. Others who witnessed the event were Minister of State for Agriculture Kailash Choudhary and Shobha Karandlaje.

The SOP for drone regulation for pesticide