Submitted by a_todkar on
Overview
1. The Agricultural Produce Market Committees are the regulated markets in the State for the trade of agricultural produce. The farmer in the State has been selling the agricultural produce in these markets. However, to enable the farmer to fetch better price for the agricultural produce, it is necessary to improve the farmers’ access to the markets. This could be achieved by: i) formation of farmers groups which will perform the activity of aggregation of their produce, ii) value addition to the produce, iii) warehouse receipts development, iv) selling of produce at the rural haats, and, v) providing e- marketing platforms for trade of agricultural produce.
2. It is proposed to establish the Farmers Common Services Centers (FCSCs) by bringing farmers together in the form of voluntary group of about 12 to 19 active farmers and federating 15 to 20 groups into Producers Association (PA). There are more than 2,00,000 groups of farmers / women in the State in the form of Commodity Interest Groups (CIGs), Farmers Interest Groups (FIGs), Producers Groups (PGs). The existing groups from the above that are functioning, as well as the new farmers groups formed under the project, will be performing the activity of aggregation of the their produce under an entity of Farmers Common Service Centre (FCSC) and they will also undertake marketing of Agri. inputs to the farmers. These FCSCs will be functioning on behalf of the member farmers and will strive to undertake activities of providing input marketing for the production of agricultural produce which will result in an added value to the farmers produce. The limitations of individual farmer with regard to the marketing of the agri. produce will be also taken care by these FCSCs.
3. The FCSCs to be formed in the project will be primarily of two types, i) FCSCs for the foodgrains and ii) FCSCs