BHUBANESWAR: After formulating a comprehensive policy for Farmer Producer Organisations (FPOs), Odisha Government has prepared an operational guideline for promotion of such organisations and their sustainability.
The FPOs will promote integrated farming and help augment the income of farmers in the State.
Besides a corpus fund of Rs 100 crore, a budgetary provision of Rs 555 crore has been made for nurturing and promoting the farmers’ bodies.
At the first resource institutions coordination committee for FPO promotion meeting held recently, it has been decided to set up resource institutions (RIs) and project management units (PMUs) for the smooth functioning of the organisations.
While the RIs will be formed in four directorates - Agriculture, Horticulture, Fisheries and Animal Husbandry and Veterinary Services, PMUs will be established with professional manpower under each RI to look after the activities of FPO promotion.
An official of the Horticulture Department said operational guideline will be the guiding principles for enabling eco-systems for FPOs and PMU will monitor overall activities of the FPOs as apex body.
To build a robust system for the overall economic development of farmers, the committee has decided to set up Producer Organisations Promoting Institutions (PoPI) and Agri-Business Promotion Unit (ABPU) for the sustainability of FPOs.
As many as 270 FPOs each will promote from the four sectors in the next three years. While 40 each FPO will be promoted in 2019-20, 100 FPOs each will be promoted in 2020-21 and 130 each in 2021-22.
“After three years of FPO promotion, it has been proposed to engage the ABPU for the next four years to make the FPO sustainable in business development. As decided, 1080 FPOs will be formed involving 10.8 lakh farmers in Agriculture, Horticulture, Fisheries and Animal Husbandry and Veterinary services sectors,” the officer informed.
The FPOs will be facilitated with new technology, infrastructure, knowledge, IT applications, market intelligence and linkage, credit and finance arrangements to ensure availability of end-to-end services for their members.
Land will be made available for FPOs at a concessional price or free for setting up storage, sorting and grading yards besides processing plants as per the guidelines.
The farmer organisations will also be allowed for direct sale of farm produce at the farm gate through FPO-owned procurement and marketing centres.
