Almost 5,000 of the 8,000 registered Farmer Producer Organisations (FPOs) have been registered on the Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC) portal for selling the produce online to consumers across the country.

The onboarding of FPOs on ONDC to reach out to their buyers in any part of the country is in line with the Central government’s objective of providing growers with better market access.

“The move aims to empower FPOs with direct access to digital marketing, online payment, business-to-business and business-to-consumer transactions,” the Ministry of Agriculture said.

Over 8,000 FPOs have been registered against the government target of 10,000 under a new Central Sector Scheme titled “Formation and Promotion of 10,000 Farmer Produce Organisations (FPOs)” launched in 2020 with a budgetary provision of Rs 6,865 crore.

Aggregation of small, marginal, and landless farmers into FPOs helps enhance economic strength and market linkages of farmers for enhancing their income. FPOs facilitate farmers with access to improved technology, credit, better input, and more markets to incentivise them to produce better quality commodities.

The FPOs are provided financial assistance up to Rs 18.00 lakh per FPO for a period of three years. In addition, provision has been made for matching equity grant up to Rs. 2,000 per farmer member of FPO with a limit of Rs. 15.00 lakh per FPO and a credit guarantee facility up to Rs. 2 crore of project loan per FPO from the eligible lending institution to ensure institutional credit accessibility to FPOs.

So far, Credit Guarantee has been issued to 1,101 FPOs worth guaranteed coverage of Rs 246.0 crore covering more than 10.2 lakh farmers. A matching equity grant amounting to Rs 145.1 crore has been transferred directly to the bank account of the eligible 3,187 FPOs.

Formation & promotion of FPOs is the first step for converting Krishi into Atmanirbhar Krishi. The initiative enhances cost-effective production and productivity and higher net incomes to the members of the FPO. It also improves the rural economy and creates job opportunities for rural youths in villages itself. This was the major step towards improving farmers’ income substantially.