Brainstorming session with Agri business Corporates and Farmer Producer Organizations
Bhubaneswar(Kalinga Voice) : The Round Table on Agri-marketing is an initiative of the Department of Agriculture and Farmers’ Empowerment under the Chairmanship of Hon’ble Minister of Department of Agriculture and Farmers’ Empowerment, Department of Fisheries and Animal Resource Development and Department of Higher Education, Government of Odisha. The round table is being held to establish sustainable institutional market linkages between the Farmer Producer Organizations (FPOs) and leading Agri-business corporate to fetch remunerative prices for agriculture and horticulture produces.
The round table is a follow up event of Odisha Agri Conclave 2021 to involve private players in developing strategy to promote crop specific sourcing from the state through the Farmer Producer Organization (FPO) channel. Odisha Government has been one of the pioneers in forming the Odisha FPO Policy, 2018 which has been promoting and strengthening FPOs in the State. The Department of Agriculture and Farmers’ Empowerment will also implement its State Plan Scheme for Promotion and Stabilization of FPOs in the State.
Currently, there are 600+ FPOs being promoted and supported under government policies and schemes like PKVY, RKVY, MIDH, Odisha Millet Mission, APC, Central Sector SchemeFormation and Promotion of 10,000 FPOs: many FPOs have also been set up independently.
The Government of Odisha seeks engagement of private sectors with farmer producer organizations (FPOs) in the State in setting up sustainable sourcing models. The holistic development of agriculture and allied sectors can be achieved through investment in infrastructure, value addition, quality enhancement and remunerative market linkages. Enhancing income of farmers has been the utmost priority of Government of Odisha. The department is actively working to strengthen the agriculture marketing ecosystem in the state through promotion of Farmer Producer Organizations, strengthening of Production Clusters and schematic convergence for value addition. While the private sector should come forward with market requirements, the State Government is concurrently looking to develop cluster-based market model to streamlining the production systems as per market demand, build capacity of the FPOs to ensure quality supply and bring sustainability in the supply chain.
Odisha sports a rich harvest of marketable surplus agriculture and horticulture commodities such as Maize, Millets, Aromatic rice, Cotton, Turmeric, Chili, Ginger, Lemon, Watermelon, Lemongrass and Kewda, Mango, Cashew and Coffee, Sweet Potato, Brinjal, Tomato, Okra and Onion. The State also followed success of Green Revolution and focused on production led agriculture system to attain self-sufficiency in food grain production.
Dr. Arun Kumar Sahu, Minister, Agriculture and Farmers’ Empowerment, Fisheries and ARD, Higher Education chaired the round table on agri-marketing opportunities. Smt. Anjana Panda, Additional Secretary, Department of Agriculture and Farmers’ Empowerment gave the welcome address. Sj. Sanjeev Chopra, ACS-cum-APC, Department of Agriculture an Farmers’ Empowerment gave the keynote address, Sj. Sanjeev Chadha, Special Secretary to Department ofAgriculture and Farmers’ Empowerment presented key offerings of the Agriculture and Horticulture Sector to the participants. He also moderated the Brainstorming session. Director of
Horticulture, Director of Agriculture and Food Production, Director, Soil Conservation and Watershed Development were present during the round table. Officials from ORMAS, OSAM Board, APICOL have also been invited to the Round Table.
24 Private Sector Institutional buyers, such as, ITC, Big Basket, Mother Dairy, DeHaat, Indian Ocean Group participated in the round table. 12 MoUs were signed between Institutional buyers and Government of Odisha.
Representatives from 9 FPOs engaged in procurement and marketing of crops, such as, Chili, Ginger, Turmeric, Cashew, Mango, Jackfruit, Millets, Lemongrass participated in focused group discussion with private sector buyers.
