Focus: GS III-Agriculture
Why in News?
Recently, the Ministry of Agriculture & Farmers Welfare has organized the National Conference of Cluster Based Business Organization’s (CBBOs), under the Central Sector Scheme of Formation and Promotion of 10,000 FPOs (Farmer Producer Organization).
About the scheme:
Nodal: Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers welfare
- It is a Central Sector Scheme titled “Formation and Promotion of Farmer Produce Organizations (FPOs)” to form and promote 10,000 new FPOs.
- More than 86% of farmers in India are small and marginal. if these small, marginal and landless farmers are aggregated into FPOs, it would help them to enhance the economic strength & market linkages of farmers. This in turn will help in enhancing their income.
About Farmer producer organizations:
Nodal: Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers welfare
- This is a Central Sector Scheme which receives funding from Government of India.
- It will also improve the market access for members.
- Further, “One District One Product” cluster will be created to promote specialization.
- In the FPOs, agricultural and horticultural produces will be grown and cultivated to leverage the economies of scale.
Benefits
- Small and marginal farmers do not have the economic strength to apply production technology, services and marketing including value addition.
- Through the formation of FPOs, farmers will have better collective strength for better access to quality input, technology, credit and better marketing access through economies of scale for better realization of income.
Implementing Agencies (IAs)
There are presently nine implementing agencies namely,
- Small Farmers Agri-Business Consortium (SFAC),
- National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD),
- National Cooperative Development Corporation (NCDC),
- North Eastern Regional Agricultural Marketing Corporation Limited (NERAMAC),
- Small Farmers Agri-Business Consortium Haryana (SFACH),
- National Agricultural Cooperative Marketing Federation of India (NAFED),
- Watershed Development Department (WDD)- Karnataka
- Tamil Nadu-Small Farmers Agri-Business Consortium (TN-SFAC) and
- Foundation for Development of Rural Value Chains (FDRVC)- Ministry of Rural Development (MoRD).
