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Market Linkage and Capacity Building for Farmer collectives

Overview

ESAF has a special program to link the producer directly with the market players. We have organized three buyer seller meets in which 30 different corporates and exporters attended. Also, 50 farmers’ collectives participated in the meet where they presented their available produces.

ESAF also organised training on processing, grading and packaging of vegetables through MAIBF-Madurai. 20 members from different farmers’ collectives participated in this programme. Also, we had organized an exposure visit to paddy processing centres.

These helped the farmers’ collectives in shorting, grading and packaging of produces during the lockdown.

Project Objectives

To build the capacity of the FC stakeholders in leadership development at the grass-root level and train them on governance and management of FCs to make it more sustainable.

To train the FC stakeholders on productivity enhancement of their lead crops, with the support of reputed research institutions. They were given training on effective agronomical practices, and the introduction of bio- inoculants to improve the fertility of the soil.

To provide compliance services to proposed FCs and to help them in the timely filing of ROC compliances.

To train the farmers in setting up two Agri Entrepreneurs Collectives Market.

To build the capacity of CEOs, BODs and lead farmers of Farmers’ Collectives in post-harvest processing technologies. This helps in the reduction of wastage of vegetables, fruits and increasing their shelf-life for better price realization.

Activities

  • Capacity building training for Lead Farmers, and Office Bearers of five FPOs/Farmers’ Collectives – on business plan preparation, execution, best farming practices (Optimum inputs, statutory, business planning, Crop insurance, Credit lending, Financial support) and value addition.
  • Training five Farmers’ Collectives on Compliances and ROC filing procedures.

Impacts

One FPC through collective marketing has done business worth Rs. 62 lakh, benefiting 35 farmers.

ESAF, the practitioner of prosperity

The story of farmers of Tamil Nadu

In the rural villages in Tamil Nadu, agriculture has been the main source of income for generations. The market players, especially the brokers, influence the pricing of agricultural crops, apart from seasonal challenges. The Farmer Producer Companies were established to address the issues farmers faced from middlemen. Ever since ESAF intervened in strengthening the FPCs in Tamil Nadu, we have been striving to make farming systematic and scientific in the state.

Even though the strengthening of FPCs made a positive impact on the welfare of farmers, middlemen continued to be a thorn in the flesh as they prevented farmers from procuring crops at fair prices. Under these circumstances, ESAF came forward with a solution to remove the middlemen from the picture. ESAF discovered that directly connecting the buyer and the seller could help the farmers reap better yields. As a result, buyer-seller meets were organized in Krishnagiri, Theni and Selam.

The Krishnagiri buyer-seller meet ended up as a huge success and garnered a turnover of Rs. 62 lakh. Representatives of 18 FPCs and 8 potential buyers attended the meeting. 998 farmers were benefited as they got orders for 349 tons of agricultural produces.

A visual walkthrough of the project