A regional conference of Cluster Based Business Organisations (CBBOs) and Farmers’ Producer Organisations (FPOs) under Central Sector Scheme of ‘Formation & Promotion of 10,000 FPOs’ was organised in Bengaluru on May 27 by Karnataka’s Watershed Department.
The conference was attended by Union Ministers of State for Agriculture and Farmers’ Welfare Kailash Choudhary and Shobha Karandlaje. The main intention was to facilitate knowledge sharing among CBBOs on best practices and provide a platform for discussion on expectations from CBBOs.
Karnataka’s Agriculture Minister B. C. Patil appealed to the Centre to envisage a special transport subsidy for exporting the produce of FPOs to various countries as the cost of international transport is very high. “This would go a long way in promoting export of agricultural commodities by the FPOs,” he said.
The Central scheme has a total budget outlay of ₹6,865.00 crore. It envisages hand-holding and financial support to the FPOs for five years.
The main intention behind forming FPOs was to bring farmers together so that small farmers will get collective strength to access quality input, credit and market due to increased scale of operations.
More than 6.92 lakh farmers have been mobilised under the scheme while 3.13 lakh farmers have been registered as shareholders of the FPOs with an equity contribution of ₹42.66 crore.
While 227 woman-focused FPOs have been registered, 525 FPOs have been set up in tribal districts.
