Wish you all Happy Ugadi!
Ugadi, also known as Vishu, is a major summer festival celebrated in Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, and Telangana on the first day of the new year. It is also believed that Lord Brahma started creating the universe on this day.
Sharing my thoughts discussed with few farmers recently and some of my research on how to increase the income of farmers.
we need leaders working fulltime to enable farmers to generate sustainable income, the future is in rural India. If India must be a healthy and sustainable country, it is important to balance both Urban and Rural development.
The pre covid19 lessons cannot be ignored, during covid19 many moved out of cities to their respective villages, and it was a chance to introspect and reset their life in right direction, many have comeback to city due to the challenges they are facing in villages.
I have discussed with many of my friends who are into agriculture to understand day to day problems, most of the cases middleman will approach the farmers to conclude the transaction and most of the time it is not a fair deal and farmers do not want any delay in selling their produce/crop.
Let's take an example of a small farmer who has 2 acres of land, if he is producing brown rice paddy seeds in 2 acres of land and he does not have time and resource to process these brown rice paddy seeds to the private rice mill which can give him better price. He decides to sell brown rice Paddy seeds at whatever price is offered by the middleman and farmers get a raw deal in most of the cases. Situations like these can be solved by farmer Producer organisation (FPO)
There are many initiatives by Government of India to increase the income of every farmer in the country. Farmer producer organization can help many farmers in India. They can apply for registration of a Farmer Producer Company under the relevant Companies Act.
Watch Kannada video
Source Youtube : Nutri Millets Tutor
Watch Hindi Video
Source Youtube : Network of Asia & Pacific Producers (NAPP)
Registration of FPO
We need to implement FPO in every village to sustain and provide good income to all the farmers across India, this is a very good sustainable solution introduced by Government of India to ensure all the problems are solved.
Village back office - Farmer Producer organisation (FPO)
There is no awareness to form FPO organization in every village, there is a need for creating awareness in villages on the benefits of registering FPO organisations, once the FPO organization is registered it functions as a village back office, this office will have qualified professionals who will suggest farmer to grow agriculture produce based on the data and research from this organization, it is important for all the farmers in respective villages to become members in the FPO organization. All the board members will have regular meetings to discuss day to day problems faced by farmers, this will help all the farmers in that village to take collective decisions on next produce/crop.
The main resources required to increase farmers income are:
1. Land
2. Technology
3. Water
4. Power
5. Agriculture Tools
6. Tractor
7. Logistic support
8. Data
All the above-mentioned points can be easily achieved by establishing former produce organization.
we need agriculture specialist who can create awareness to our farmers by studying their environment and suggest them what kind of crops should be grown and these specialist needs to be from their respective villages and should be well qualified in agriculture and adopt new technology to enable farming.
Improvement in farm produce logistics
We need improvement in logistics, if a farmer can sell his agriproducts in any of the open market, there is scope for introducing the process and system to channelize the agriproduct to reach end customers
How are we going to do this?
We need to identify the number of villages and talk to farmers to register farmer producer organization in the respective Mandi (Agricultural Produce Market Committee (APMC)) and once the registration is complete you will be part of national agriculture market which is established by Government of India and you will be eligible for many agricultural government schemes it is also the responsibility of the state government to drive this initiative in the respective states to capitalise on this good initiative by central government.
I was checking on the national agriculture market website specifically on Karnataka state we have only 2 APMC yards registered at Karnataka state. We need younger generation to understand this good initiative by Government of India and create awareness in their respective villages to form the farmer producer organization to capitalise on this good initiative by Government of India.
I have summarised the entire concept of farmer producer organization in 2 slides you can also please write to me for more details on my email ID giridharsharmag@gmail.com.
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