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HomePosts Tagged "mandi"
AgroPolicy, Finance, Horticulture, India, Water

The project builds upon a pilot financed by ADB’s project readiness facility which demonstrated the subtropical horticulture production of over 200 hectares

The Government of India and the Asian Development Bank (ADB) signed a $130 million loan to increase agricultural productivity, improve access to irrigation and promote horticulture agribusinesses to raise farmers’ income in the state of Himachal Pradesh.

The signatories to the Himachal Pradesh Subtropical Horticulture, Irrigation, and Value Addition Project were Rajat Kumar Mishra, Additional Secretary, Department of Economic Affairs, Ministry of Finance, for the Government of India, and Takeo Konishi, Country Director of ADB’s India Resident Mission, for ADB.

After signing the loan agreement, Mishra stated that improving subtropical horticulture in the southern areas of Himachal Pradesh, hitherto dependent on temperate horticulture in northern areas, offers opportunities for crop diversification, climate adaptation and more equal economic and social development across the state’s rural areas. Supporting horticulture value chains will also boost the subsector’s contribution to the country’s development and food security.

“The project builds upon a pilot financed by ADB’s project readiness facility which demonstrated the subtropical horticulture production over 200 hectares and prepared the draft water user association (WUA) act and the draft state horticulture development strategy,” said Konishi.

The project interventions will help increase the income and resilience to the effects of climate change of at least 15,000 farm households across 7 districts of the state namely Bilaspur, Hamirpur, Kangra, Mandi, Sirmour, Solan, and Una. These households have stopped farming or have reduced their farming areas because of a lack of irrigation facilities and crop damage by wild and stray animals.

The project will improve on-farm irrigation and water management in about 6,000 hectares of farmland by rehabilitating or building new irrigation schemes and strengthening the capacity of WUAs for micro-irrigation management through joint efforts from the state’s Jal Shakti Vibhag (Water Resources Department) and Department of Horticulture (DOH).

The project will also help create an ecosystem to enhance farmers’ access to markets of subtropical horticulture. The farmers will be organised into cluster-wide community horticulture production and marketing associations (CHPMAs) and district-wide CHPMA cooperative societies. CHPMA apex institution, a farmer producer company (FPC), will lead state-wide agribusiness development with the aim of ensuring profitability and access to markets of subtropical horticulture. The FPC will handle business plan development; agribusiness promotion; and designing value-addition facilities such as sorting and packaging facilities, and storage and collection centres. It will also assist CHPMAs in managing these facilities.

The project will also modernise public and private subtropical horticulture nursery facilities for improved plant health, and boost beneficiary farmers’ access to information and communication technologies, and other digital agri-technology systems for real-time farm advisories and better CHPMA management.

The project builds upon a pilot financed

Agrotech, Company News, India, People, Sustainability

The new program, MANDI, aims to benefit 50,000 farmers by end of 2023

Mastercard and ACCESS Development Services announced the launch of a new program in Assam focused on empowering farmer-producer organisations (FPOs) in the state. The program, Mainstreaming Agriculture through Networks and Development Initiatives, or MANDI, aims to strengthen FPOs by helping build their capacity through structured technical assistance by a professional cadre of trainers.

According to the ACCESS baseline survey of FPOs in Guwahati, 95 per cent of organisations cited access to markets as their key challenge along with a lack of financial services and the awareness and knowledge to avail of government schemes.

Mastercard and ACCESS are aiming to help address these challenges by facilitating training frameworks, curricula, and tools for FPOs. The program will focus on accelerating growth and development among FPOs and enhancing the financial literacy among farmers by Training them in best agricultural practices, Improving their access to market linkages, and digital tools, Generating awareness about financial services along with the available government schemes
The program has been operational on a pilot basis in Assam for the last six months and has been able to onboard 83 FPOs to date. As it continues, MANDI aims to benefit 50,000 farmers by the end of 2023.

The launch event was attended by Sankar Das, AGM, NABARD, Dr Jayanta Sharma, Senior Scientist, Krishi Vigyan Kendra, Kahikuchi, Dr Lalit Sharma, Director, Indian Institute of Entrepreneurship, and other distinguished guests.

Vipin Sharma, CEO, ACCESS Development Services, said, “The adoption of agritech solutions has played a vital role in streamlining the supply chains and addressing diverse challenges related to market linkages and access to financial services. There is a need to strengthen FPOs through technology to ensure increased connectivity and enhanced productivity. We are thrilled to collaborate with Mastercard and facilitate the tools, curriculum, and skills to ensure long-term sustainability for FPOs.”

Gautam Aggarwal, Division President, South Asia, Mastercard, said, “FPOs face several challenges to growth due to lack of digital infrastructure and technical skills. The MANDI program aims to address these issues by establishing a sustainable model that bolsters the resilience of smallholder farmers as well as supports self-reliance for FPOs by equipping them with knowledge, digital tools, and training. This initiative advances the Government of India’s vision of Atmanirbhar Bharat and reiterates Mastercard’s commitment to connecting more people to the digital economy, including those who earn their livelihoods from agriculture.”

The new program, MANDI, aims to benefit

Finance, Horticulture, India, Schemes - Banks, Sustainability, Water

The project will improve on-farm irrigation and water management in about 6,000 hectares of farmland by rehabilitating and constructing new irrigation facilities

The Asian Development Bank (ADB) has approved a $130 million loan to increase agricultural productivity and promote horticulture agribusinesses to raise farmers’ income in Himachal Pradesh, India.

The Himachal Pradesh Subtropical Horticulture, Irrigation, and Value Addition Project will help increase the income and resilience to the effects of climate change of at least 15,000 farm households in Bilaspur, Hamirpur, Kangra, Mandi, Sirmour, Solan, and Una.

The project will improve on-farm irrigation and water management in about 6,000 hectares of farmland by rehabilitating and constructing new irrigation facilities, establishing new water sources, and strengthening the capacity of water user associations and of Jal Shakti Vibhag (Water Resources Department).

Farmers will be organised into cluster-wide community horticulture production and marketing associations (CHPMAs) and district-wide CHPMA cooperative societies. They will be introduced to other agricultural practices such as intercropping, beekeeping, and other modern agronomic techniques and skills. A farmer-producer company (FPC) will be created at the state level to lead agribusiness development with the aim of ensuring profitability and access to markets of subtropical horticulture. The FPC will handle business plan development; agribusiness promotion; and designing value-addition facilities such as sorting and packaging facilities, and storage and collection centres. It will also assist district CHPMAs in managing these facilities.

“More than half of Himachal Pradesh’s land area is in the mountains and 90 per cent of the population lives in rural areas that are dependent on agriculture,” said ADB Sunae Kim Senior Natural Resources and Agriculture Specialist for South Asia. “Improving subtropical horticulture in the state offers a lot of economic opportunities to farmer households. Supporting horticulture value chains will also boost the subsector’s contribution to the country’s development and food security.”

The project will improve on-farm irrigation and

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