Centre all set to bring out policy on FPOs, says official

The national FPO policy is significant as the government has emphasised on farmers’ collectives in recent years. In 2020, the Centre launched a programme with an outlay of `6,865 crore for setting up 10,000 new FPOs.

Earlier this year, the Agriculture Ministry constituted an expert group under Kidwai for drafting the national policy on the FPOs. The group held consultations and meetings with different stakeholders and prepared a draft of the policy, which was released in public domain on June 18 for public comments and suggestions.

Kidwai said the government had set a target to constitute 10,000 FPOs by March 2024, and had constituted more than 9,000.

“Our target under this 10,000-FPO programme is to reach out to about 50 lakh farmers. We have reached about 20 lakh till now. Also, give them an equity of more than Rs 800 crore,” he said, adding that the draft of the policy is almost ready and it may be released in a fortnight.

“Around 28 per cent (of the 20 lakh farmers) are women. About 21 per cent belong to the Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribes… We have given them more than Rs 210 crore in equity, which is a matching contribution to what they have collected amongst themselves. More than `400 crore have been given as a credit guarantee,” he said, sharing details of the government’s support for the FPOs

“But we want to go much beyond that. We want to federate FPOs. We want to get FPOs into value addition. We want to get FPOs into branding. We are thinking of a national brand for FPOs, a brand which will signify their products, which will signify a quality of those products,” he added.

Stressing on the need of the database of the FPOs, Kidwai said, “A database is not only important for companies, the database is not only important for aggregators, but the database is also important for the government. It is also important for the political parties. The day they realize that you are 40,000 FPOs and you are three to four crore farmers, and you are one voice that is a very massive, a very powerful voice to get your rights, to get your demands from various agencies.”

India representative of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), Takayuki Hagiwara, said that FPO has emerged as a beacon of hope for the small and marginal farmers. The FAO is currently developing a project to work with FPOs in certain states in India, Hagiwara said.

On this occasion, Bharat FPO Finder, an online platform to provide a single-source of authentic, MCA verified data on Farmer Producer Companies (FPCs) was also launched. The platform has been developed by the National Association for Farmer Producer, Organisations, and Samunnati, an agriculture value chain enabler. The platform provides information on over 35,000 FPOs.

Samunnati Founder and CEO Anil Kumar SG said, “The digital transformation in agriculture is underway, and the Bharat FPO Finder is set to be at the heart of it. With FPOs playing a pivotal role in aggregating small and marginal farmers to achieve scale in agricultural production, market access, and finance, this platform will strengthen their ability to connect with stakeholders who can support their growth”.

Pravesh Sharma, director, Samunnati, termed the Bharat FPO Finder as “India’s Google for FPOs.”

On this occasion, a White Paper on Financing Climate-Smart Agriculture (CSA) was also released. The paper outlines strategies to accelerate financing for climate reliant agriculture practices.