Farmer Producer Organisations – Agents of Prosperity

Farmer Producer Organisations – Agents of Prosperity

Context: An editorial recently discussed about role of FPO’s in Uttar Pradesh in addressing several issues faced by farmers. We will discuss about FPO’s in the article.

What are Farmer producer organization (FPO)?
• An FPO is a collective of farmers who have holdings or work in a geographical cluster. It can be registered under the Companies Act or as a cooperative under the Societies Registration Act.

About FPO scheme:
• The Government of India launched the Formation and Promotion of 10,000 Farmer Producer Organizations (FPOs) scheme in February 2019.
• The scheme aims to form and promote 10,000 new FPOs by 2027-28. The scheme has a total budgetary outlay of Rs. 6865 Cr.

How do FPO’s help farmers and Indian agriculture?
• Trigger Cluster based farming
• Bring economies of scale in input management facilitating agri-extension, technology adoption, help farmers market their produce
• Address the issue of Fragmented holdings
• Crop diversification
• Enhance agricultural productivity and reduce overall cost of farmers.

How FPO’s in Uttar Pradesh are helping farmers?
• The FPO Shakti portal has been launched to provide a platform to all active FPOs in UP. It is a one-stop solution for grievance redressal, forging business partnerships and fostering convergence. There are total 1600 FPO’s in UP.
• For example, an FPO in UP is focusing on farming Kalanamak Rice (GI tagged) of Siddharthnagar district. “One District, One product” scheme had enhanced focus on this rice variant.
• Focus on Nutrition – Several FPO’s are investing in high-nutrient agri-products like millets, mushrooms, moringa and fortified cereals. For example, In Rampur, the FPO collaborated with the district administration for the “Aahaar Se Upchar Tak” campaign to supply nutrition-rich products to anganwadi kendras. Their efforts led to an improvement in nutritive outcomes in the area.
• In the past two years, Eastern UP has emerged as a hub of vegetable and fruit exports. Progressive farmers have associated with FPOs of the region and become agents of change.