‘Agriculture Journalist Association of India’ has been the talk of the town recently, as the association’s official logo was launched by none other than the Hon’ble Minister amidst the presence of crème de la crème dignitaries from the agriculture industry at an event held recently in New Delhi.
To ensure AJAI does manage to bring change in the world of Agri journalism, the Hon’ble Minister spoke to MC Dominic, the man behind the idea of AJAI, which has already trained close to 200 farmer journalists in order to learn the actual and factual state of affairs in the farming industry. The minister also shared his significant viewpoints about various aspects of Agri-start-ups, Cooperatives, and Farmer Producer Organizations (FPOs).
Expressing his concern for FPOs, the minister shared his views regarding the farming industry and discussed various approaches to overcome the issue of market linkage and ways to further extend the awareness amongst farmers.
The minister also highlighted the role of CBBO in FPOs and how it has affected the market linkage that is the key requirement for farmers. He feels that the main role of cluster-based organizations (CBBOs) is to help in the registration and training of FPOs and provide market linkage for products both local and global. Assigned by cooperatives like NCDC, NAFED, NABARD, and IFFCO, CBBOs work in coherence with the state governments to ensure that FPOs get all the benefits that are accorded to cooperatives. But the main issue has been with the market linkage and CBBO is not working accordingly. “Farmers should be aware of the market demand and produce accordingly and should not completely depend on CBBOs,” the minister shares. Eager to see AJAI’s plans being executed on the ground, the minister adds, “AJAI will be a big game changer.”
While appreciating Mr. Dominic, who is also the Editor in Chief of one of India’s leading agriculture media houses, Krishi Jagran, for providing information to farmers across the nation in 12 different languages, he says, “Most of the agriculture work should be done in regional languages so that the farmer of a particular region can understand and utilize the information in the correct way.”
Taking the cue from the discussion vis-à-vis various sectors with the Minister, Mr Dominic shares "Krishi Jagran is already working towards providing a platform for Agri-start-ups, Cooperatives, and FPOs through its ACF summit i.e., Agri-startups, Cooperatives and Farmer Producer Organizations (FPOs) to be held on April 25th. This will be an ideal platform for all its participants to have B2B meetings with other leading players from the industry.”
Also present in the meeting were - Senior Vice President of Krishi Jagran, PS Saini; GM, social media, Nishant Taak; and Twinkle Mongia from the organization’s Events department, who got to interact with Mr. Rupala.
