Promotion of Farmers Producer Organisation (FPO) Project (Sustainable Development Goal No. 1 “No Poverty” and Goal No. 8 "Decent Work and Economic Growth")

A Farmer Producer Organisation (FPO) is a legal entity formed by primary producers, viz. farmers, milk producers, fishermen, weavers, rural artisans, craftsmen. It can be a producer company, a cooperative society or any other legal entity, which provides a mechanism for collective action and for sharing profits/benefits arising there from among the members.

The main aim of a FPO is to ensure better incomes to its producer members from a business organisation that they own, run and control. Small producers universally lack the individual volumes both in terms of inputs needed by them, and their marketable produce, that would allow them to access the benefit of economies of scale. Besides, the long chain of intermediaries they encounter in their marketing, who most often work with a lack of transparency or complete non-transparency, leads to a scenario where the producer invariably receives only a small part of the value that the ultimate consumer pays. Through aggregation at all levels of inputs and outputs made possible by setting up their own organisation, the primary producers can avail the economies of scale, which their individual limited resources prevents them from doing. In unison, they also command better bargaining power vis-à-vis the bulk buyers of produce and bulk suppliers of inputs.

The promotion and nurturing of FPO contributes to the Sustainable Development Goal No. 1 “No Poverty” and Goal No. 8 "Decent Work and Economic Growth" as it helps in creating farmer owned enterprises and increasing incomes of the FPO members.

IFFDC is implementing 10 projects for Promotion of 49 FPO in seven States i.e. Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Bihar, Haryana, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat and Maharashtra with financial support from NABARD and NCDC under the Central Sector Scheme of the Govt. of India for Promotion of 10,000 Farmer Producer Organisations (FPO). The project duration is of five years from April 2021 to March 2026. The progress for the year 2025-26 is as below:

  • All 49 FPOs allocated to IFFDC have been formed of which 27 are registered under respective State Cooperative Acts and 22 are under the Companies Act. 36,218 Farmers are the shareholders of these FPOs.
  • The FPOs are functioning democratically and have well established participatory decision-making mechanisms in place. These FPOs have so far organised 2,326 meetings of their shareholders to discuss FPO activities and progress. Also 1,928 meetings of the Boards of Directors of FPOs have been organised on a regular basis for participatory business planning, execution of business plans, resource mobilisation, participatory monitoring and decision making etc.
  • The skill and capacity of the Boards of Directors & Chief Executive Officers of these FPOs has been enhanced by executing 164 training programmes and organising 140 Exposure visits for them, to observe hands on and imbibe the knowhow of efficient functioning practices, business development, market development, fund management, record keeping, new advancement in agriculture technologies, convergence with government schemes etc. of live examples of other businesses akin to themselves.
  • For undertaking various agri-businesses under a legal framework, all 49 FPOs have obtained PAN and GST numbers. Similarly, 30 FPOs have obtained Mandi Licenses, 47 FPOs have obtained FSSAI Licenses and 44 FPOs obtained licenses for sale of Fertilisers, Seeds, Pesticides and other agri-inputs. The online marketing of their produce is also being done and for that, 48 FPOs are registered on the National Agriculture Market (e-NAM) portal and 49 FPOs are on ONDC portal.
  • Based on the progress/milestones achieved as per the guidelines of the scheme, 47 FPOs have received Equity Grants of Rs. 461.71 Lakh and 49 FPOs have received Rs. 636.73 Lakh as FPO Management Cost from the Govt of India under the scheme. Similarly, IFFDC has received a grant sum of Rs. 715.12 Lakh towards CBBO Management Cost for their promotion of and providing handholding support to these FPOs.
  • With IFFDC support, 43 FPOs have undertaken the business of Agri-inputs i.e. Nano Fertilisers, Bulk Fertilisers, Seeds, Pesticides, Bio-fertilisers and achieved a turnover of Rs. 15.71 crore. Besides this, 39 FPOs have undertaken Agri-commodity trading and achieved a turnover of Rs. 453.74 Crore.