IFFCO Kisan Sanchar Ltd (a subsidiary of IFFCO) is in the process of setting up 17 Farmer Producer Organizations (FPOs) in Gujarat. These FPOs are being established in association with National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD) and National Cooperative Development Corporation (NCDC) will be spread across several districts of Gujarat.
A total of 5000 farmers will be associated with the upcoming FPOs by Dec 2021 and expected to engage more than 50000 farmers by 2025. The company intends to hand hold them for creating a sustainable business model by imparting regular training on Ag- tech usage, Package of practices (PoPs), Post Harvest management, Primary processing, Quality parameters, Market intelligence and diverse business planning etc. IFFCO Kisan would also be facilitating market linkage support to these FPOs/farmers under its Farmer Forward Linking Program (FFLP) to farmers.
IFFCO Kisan will establish as many as 5 FPOs in association with NABARD. These FPOs will come up in 4 districts –Anand, Patan, Surendranagar and Valsad with Surendranagar having 2 FPOs, while all other district will have one each. The upcoming FPO at Anand, Patan, Surendranagar and Valsad will cater to Banana, Castor, Cumin and Cashew/ Mango respectively.
The company will also establish a total of 12 FPOs in Gujarat in association with NCDC. These 12 FPOs will be located in– Junagarh and Sabarkantha districts with both the districts having 6 FPOs each. The FPO, which is coming up at Junagarh will cater to Mango, Groundnut, Jowar and Cumin while those coming up at Sabarkantha will cater to Groundnut, Castor, Amla and Potato.
“IFFCO Kisan has been selected by two implementing agencies – NABARD and NCDC to set up 17 FPOs in the state of Gujarat. These FPOs will cater to various kinds of crop,” said Mr. Sanjeev Sharma, Chief- Agri Business Services, IFFCO Kisan Sanchar Ltd.
He further said the company will endeavor to provide forward linkages to the farmers so that they are able to fetch better prices for their produce.
“IFFCO Kisan is also at the forefront of adopting modern agri-tech and data driven practices and we envisage to make farmers adopt some of the practices that are climate friendly such as GAP, IPM, Organic etc. which will not only enhance the crop yield and save soil and climate health but reduce the cost of cultivation and will augment the income of farmers,” Mr. Sharma added.
IFFCO Kisan, earlier, in association with NABARD has created Rajeshwar FPO in Vav Taluka, Tharad in Banaskantha engaging more than 1000 cumin farmers. IFFCO Kisan helped them establish a primary processing unit (Cleaning, grading and sorting line) and trained them to trade on NCDEX in future and Spot market. Rajeshwar FPO is one of the best performing FPOs in Gujarat formed in assistance with NABARD.
It is pertinent to mention here Government of India has formulated a Central Sector Scheme and is targeting formation and promotion of 10,000 FPOs by 2025-26.
IFFCO Kisan, which is a subsidiary of Fertilizer major IFFCO, is currently connected with around 60 FPOs directly or indirectly spread across the country with its various product and services like Ag- Tech based end-to-end traceability platform, Voice and Text Based granular Advisories on cultivation practices, weather alerts and actions, Pest & Disease prediction and management, Climate resilient practices etc., IoT based farming solutions, FFLP (Farmer Forward Linkage program) and affordable quality compound cattle feed.
