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AgroPolicy, Horticulture, India, People, Sustainability, Trade, Vegetables

The government has taken up the task of providing GI tagging to another 20-25 products which will give us an edge in the international markets.

“Expanding business and marketing opportunities for farmers with a well-planned holistic agriculture development is immensely helping Jammu and Kashmir to move towards historic transformation”, said Atal Dulloo, Additional Chief Secretary (ACS), Agriculture Production Department.

ACS said this while addressing a mammoth gathering after inaugurating one day Buyer-Seller meet organised by the department of Horticulture Planning and Marketing (HP&M).

Over three hundred growers and farmers, SHGs, FPOs and entrepreneurs hailing from different parts of J&K participated in the event.

The meet also witnessed great participation of buyers which included big merchants, exporters and multinational companies like Reliance, Big Basket and Amazon. Besides, many potential buyers, exporters, and stakeholders including HFN, Unnati Cooperatives, Uniwool, JKDCUL, Sarweshwar addressed the gathering.

Participating buyers appreciated the initiative of the department which will provide an exclusive opportunity to interact directly with the growers and farmers.

He said that the government has launched a holistic agriculture development programme in J&K. The conceptualization, formulation and approval of the massive transformative mission to reform agriculture and allied sectors in J&K was finalized and translated on ground in just 5 months of time, he added.

Pertinently, the humongous exercise began with the constitution of the Apex Committee under the Chairmanship of Mangla Rai by the Lieutenant Governor and culminated with the finalization of a transformative mission for holistic development of agriculture and allied sectors in J&K with the potential to transform the subsistence agriculture of J&K into sustainable commercial agri-economy.

Atat Duloo said the approved plan comprising 29 project proposals shall push agriculture and allied sectors to a new trajectory of growth with economy, ecology and equity as its guiding pillars, he shared. He also announced that the government has taken up the task of providing GI tagging to another 20-25 products which will give us an edge in the international markets. Besides, a high-level committee has been set up to take steps for export promotion of our significant products.

ACS further shared that the government has recently constituted a Marketing Board for facilitating the regulation of mandis and conferred various powers to the Board and the director of Horticulture, Planning and Marketing, J&K. The unified licensing has been approved as also the declaration of CA stores/warehouses/stores of FPOs/Cooperatives as sub-yards of Mandis for undergoing trade on e-NAM.

He said HP&M has moved towards a transparent e-auction system for the allocation of space in mandis and e-NAM trade has increased from less than Rs 1 crore to over Rs 23 crore in a span of 3-4 months, besides taking lead at the national level in inter-state e-NAM Trade.

Speaking on the occasion, Vanita, DGM APEDA, deliberated upon the initiatives of the organization towards the promotion of J&K agriculture and Horticulture. She informed that APEDA, a first, recently introduced the Mishri variety of cherry to the Singapore market and Kashmir Apples to Hongkong which she termed as new milestones for local products.

Later, a buyer seller interaction session was conducted where participants had a thorough and candid discussion on different aspects related to business promotion.

The government has taken up the task

India, Start ups

Harvesting Farmer Network (HFN), a leading agriculture technology platform in India, has raised $4 million from Social Capital, a Silicon Valley-based technology investment firm managed by Chamath Palihapitiya. This is the first institutional round raised by HFN, which will be used to reach more than 120 million smallholder farmers across India, as well as explore opportunities in India’s rural markets.

HFN helps smallholder farmers (defined by the UN as a farmer owning less than 2 hectare of land) in India to increase their income by empowering them with a collective bargaining platform. Through HFN’s platform, farmers are able to buy farm inputs, access financial services such as loans and insurance, as well as sell their crops to national and international customers enabling them to scale and grow their businesses.

Founded by Ruchit Garg during COVID-19, HFN was created to reduce the friction between farmers and buyers, initially by enabling them to connect directly on Twitter. Since then, more than $500 million of crops, consisting of over 360 crop varieties, have been listed on HFN’s digital platform from every state across India. These crops have been sold domestically as well as to international markets. A global agricultural powerhouse, India produces more than $275 billion of crops annually.

As of August 2022, more than 3.7 million farmers are digitally connected to the HFN platform, witnessing a 2.5X increase in their crop earnings. Recently, many forward-thinking farmers have even launched offline centres known as “HFN Kisan Centres” to help fellow local farmers sell their crops and buy staple inputs such as seeds and fertiliser at affordable prices.

Ruchit G Garg, Founder CEO of HFN, said: “At HFN, our goal is to help farmers realise their full potential by reducing the plethora of inefficiencies across the agriculture value chain. Simple and widely-available technologies like WhatsApp and Twitter have allowed us to create massive data-driven farmer co-operatives, which allows farmers to negotiate better rates for farm inputs and more competitive prices for outputs.”

Jay Zaveri, Partner at Social Capital, said: “India is one of the bread baskets of the world and we’re excited to partner with HFN to bring a safe, secure, and empowering platform to the more than 120 million smallholder farmers across India. Our goal is to enable Indian households to access high-quality farm produce and for farmers to build a profitable livelihood through HFN.”

HFN plans to use the new funding to rapidly expand its footprint across India, and over the next 12 months, it expects to connect farmers in every single one of India’s 708 districts across the country.

Harvesting Farmer Network (HFN), a leading agriculture