India: Farmers collectives spark foreign interest
“Large retail chains in Europe and West Asia are keen to source vegetables from farmer producer organisations (FPOs) here, provided they are offered guarantee on traceability issues,” said Pravesh Sharma, Managing Director of the Small Farmers Agri Business Consortium (SFAC) that is spearheading the creation of FPOs.
Retail chains are keen to source green vegetables ranging from cabbage to okra and baby corn among others.
This is a significant development considering that the FPOs are in the nascent stage and is expected to give a further impetus to the creation of such collectives.
So far, about 350 FPOs have been set up across the country and another 500 are in the process of being formed, Sharma said.
Besides acting as aggregators of farm produce and helping establish market linkages with large buyers, FPOs are also seen as a potential vehicle to foster technology penetration, improve productivity and enable improved access to inputs such as seeds and fertilisers and services such as financial and insurance among the farming communities. Apart from enabling the famers to leverage the market for better prices, FPOs also provide a window for channelising the funds under various schemes such as the ongoing Rashtriya Krishi Vikas Yojana.
If the interest shown by European and West Asian retail chains fructifies into a formal arrangement, the shipment of vegetables to these regions could see a pick up, once traceability issues are addressed. In the middle of this year, the EU banned import of four Indian vegetables – including eggplants (brinjals and gourds) along with mangoes on the grounds they contained harmful organisms. Even Saudi Arabia recently banned the import of Indian green chillies on the grounds of high pesticide residues.
Source: thehindubusinessline.com
