Minister of Agriculture & Cooperation, Marketing and Food Processing Kakani Govardhan Reddy has said that the Farmer Producer Organisations (FPOs) will be largely promoted in Andhra Pradesh on the lines of the Self Help Groups (SHGs) to help farmers get remunerative prices and explore opportunities in the domestic and export markets.
Mr. Govardhan Reddy inaugurated the day-long workshop on ‘Export opportunities for agricultural, horticultural and processed food products from Andhra Pradesh’ organised by the A.P. State Organic Products Certification Authority (APSOPCA), Guntur, and Agricultural and Processed Food Products Export Development Authority (APEDA), New Delhi, in Vijayawada on June 6 (Tuesday).
Speaking on the occasion, Mr. Govardhan Reddy said that Andhra Pradesh produces many varieties of horticulture and agriculture products in huge quantities, and remunerative price for the farmers was the most important aspect to be addressed.
“Through the FPOs, focus will be on achieving remunerative prices for the products. The FPOs will be promoted in a big way in the State so that the produce from small farmers is sourced by them on a large scale. The FPOs will trade the products in domestic and export markets,” he added.
He said the Good Agriculture Practices (GAP) certification by the State government would make agriculture more beneficial to the farmers as they would be able to export the products to about 100 countries.
Special Commissioner of Agriculture C. Hari Kiran said, for the first time, Andhra Pradesh was going to issue GAP certification to the farmers. He said farmers with GAP certification could export their produce to the European countries and the U.S. and get more profits. He said the World Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) trained 240 farmers from Andhra Pradesh in good agriculture practices, and they in turn trained 9,000 more farmers.
Commissioner of Horticulture S.S. Sreedhar said that Andhra Pradesh cultivates more than 135 varieties of agriculture and horticulture crops, and it was in the top three positions in many crops in the country.
He said so far the produce was being exported to the Middle East, South-East and South Asian countries, and we were unable to export to other countries due to high amount of pesticide residue in the produce. He said the GAP certification would help explore more opportunities, and Andhra Pradesh now had the permission to certify organic produce too.
A.P. State Seeds Development Corporation Ltd. Vice-Chairman and Managing Director Sekhar Babu Geddam, APEDA member Polaiah Kolamgari, A.P. Food Processing Society CEO Sridhar Reddy, representatives of various FPOs, farmers and others were present.
