The Government of India has launched the Central Sector Scheme for “Formation and Promotion of 10,000 Farmer Producer Organizations (FPOs)” in the year 2020 with a total budgetary outlay of Rs.6,865 crore which aim at enabling farmers to enhance their bargaining power, leverage economies of scale, reduction in cost of production and enhancing farmers’ incomes through aggregation of their agricultural produce, thus playing a major role towards sustainable incomes.
The Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers’ Welfare has informed that there are 14 Implementing Agencies (IAs) under the scheme viz. Small Farmers’ Agri-Business Consortium (SFAC), National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD), National Cooperative Development Corporation (NCDC), National Agricultural Cooperative Marketing Federation of India Ltd. (NAFED) etc. for formation and promotion of FPOs either under Companies Act or Co-operative Societies Act of the concerned States.
Under the scheme,NCDC is exclusively promoting FPOs in the cooperative sector. An initial target for formation and promotion of 763 cooperative FPOs was allocated to NCDC, against which 672 FPOs have been registered under respective State Cooperative Acts.
Further, an additional target of 1,100 Farmer Producer Organizations (FPOs) has been allocated to NCDC by the Government of India for formation and promotion of FPOs in the cooperative sector, through strengthening of Primary Agricultural Cooperative Credit Societies (PACS). Against the target of 1,100 FPOs, selection and allocation of 645 blocks has been completed.
