<\/p>\n\n\n
There are two ways to react to a crisis, either lie down low or let the storm pass and then pick the remains to begin a new life, or brave up to the storm and steer the boat and sail to new horizons. Well, it seems that from amongst the scores of Farmers Producers Organizations (FPOs) which have been promoted in the country during last decade through various governmental interventions, quite a large number of FPOs have decided to sail in the storm. The storm being referred to here is the lockdown that has happened all across the country as a follow up of COVID 19 which has brought supply side of the chain to a grinding halt. <\/p>\n\n\n
Most of the FPOs who\nspecialize as aggregators of vegetables have stepped on the pedal and have\noccupied the space left behind by the retails chains and vendors to supply\nvegetables at the doorstep of the consumers. This after all was the ultimate\nobjective of promotion of FPOs- to encourage the farmer members to step in the\nmarket and sell their produce on their own which is a product of sweat and\nblood on their own to the end consumers.By stepping into the arena, which\notherwise was dominated by the commission agents, farmers are also learning the\nmarketing nuances and value proposition of the product pricing. <\/p>\n\n\n
FPOs have been facilitated\nby 3 step policy pronouncement by the government through e-NAM that includes: <\/p>\n\n\n
1. FPO Module<\/strong> whereby\nthe FPOs can upload picture and quality parameters of their produce at their\nown collection center and avail bidding facility without bringing produce to\nAPMCs. Produce can be delivered from their collection center to the respective\nend consumers. <\/p>\n\n\n 2.\nWarehouse Module<\/strong>: farmers storing their produce in WDRA registered\nwarehouses (declared as deemed market by State) can sell their produce through\neNAM from the warehouse. <\/p>\n\n\n 3. Logistic\nmodule<\/strong>: linking large aggregators\u2019to a logistic platform,whereby trader can\navail trucking facility of their choice from variety of options. This will\nstrengthen inter-state and inter-mandi trade on eNAM.<\/p>\n\n\n FPOs are also ensuring price stabilization by\nannouncing the price of the produce a day before the supply date to the\nconsumers and the experimentation that was initiated in Kothrud in Pune is\nbeing followed by other FPOs in different parts of the country. Whatsapp groups\nhave been created between the resident associations and FPO suppliers which\nensures proper delivery at the doorstep of the consumer without stepping out\nand violating the lockdown. <\/p>\n\n\n Fatehabad district in\nHarayana has gone one step ahead to ground this initiative and has come out\nwith detailed list of FPOs supplying vegetables. This is a monumental step forward for App\naggregators to have an exhaustive list of all the FPOs working in a district\nand integrate with them to facilitate smart optimization of the whole value\nchain through cutting edge of technology focusing on the aggregation of demand\nas the farmers have taken the initiative to understand demand. Their efforts\nneed consolidation and it can only be provided by the startups which are focusing\non agriculture. <\/p>\n\n\n For sure, the middleman\nwho was the sole purchaser of agri-produce, especially vegetables would have a\nnightmare once the lockup lifts as the farmers through FPOs have now get an\nassured clientele. FPOs are also being facilitated by the\nacademic institutions like ICAR-IIHR, Bengaluru, who understanding the logistic\nstumbling block that the farmers are facing have taken the step forward to\nprovide free technical support and share the protocols to all the FPOs for\nprocessing of their produce. The whole idea of this initiative on the part of\nthe institute is to encourage the FPOs to use this opportunity to adopt food\nprocessing in a big way for obtaining a competitive advantage as also obtain\nhigher shelf life for their products- icing on the cake being backed by\ntechnology of a reputed institute that would provide a unique USP for the produce.\nLab to field initiative of this kind is one of the first time initiatives.<\/p>\n\n\n This lock down has also underscored for FPOs\nlike Terai Fresh in Pilibhit-UP and Khushal Vegetable Growers Association in\nLudhiana to gain foothold in local market. Both these FPOs have started\nsupplying locally and have found out that there margins have increased as they\nare selling it locally without incurring any logistic cost. Same is the\nexperience of Puthari FPO in Coorg, which has been further facilitated by the\nPanchayat by providing them selling space free of cost in Panchayat premises. <\/p>\n\n\n Dr. Harminder Singh, who is the President of\nKhushal FPO, Ludhiana informs that earlier they were selling their vegetables\nthrough an outlet in PAU (Punjab Agriculture University) Ludhiana and had\ncreated a brand equity of selling organic vegetables. Now that the villagers\nfrom their own villages have started buying from them, the members of the FPOs\nfeel redeemed as they are helping their brethren indirectly to graduate to\norganic vegetables and thereby facilitating in increasing their health\nquotient. <\/p>\n\n\n This indeed is a positive step forward that\nFPOs have taken and now they are looking towards technology aggregators to hand\nhold them and help them organize their produce business in much structured\nmanner. <\/p>\n\n\n Nalin<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" There are two ways to react to a crisis, either lie down low or let the storm pass and then pick the remains to begin a new life, or brave up to the storm and steer the boat and sail to new horizons. Well, it seems that from amongst the scores of Farmers Producers Organizations […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":784,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[14,16,17,18,64,65,66],"class_list":["post-763","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog","tag-corona","tag-corona-impact-on-food-industry","tag-corona-impact-on-indian-businesses","tag-covid-19","tag-enam","tag-farmers-producer-organizations","tag-fpo"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.agnext.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/763","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.agnext.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.agnext.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.agnext.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.agnext.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=763"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/test.agnext.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/763\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.agnext.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=763"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.agnext.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=763"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.agnext.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=763"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}