MINISTER OF AGRICULTURE AND FARMERS WELFARE
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(a) to (e): A statement is laid on the Table of the House.
STATEMENT REFERRED TO IN REPLY TO PARTS (a) TO (e) OF LOK SABHA STARRED QUESTION NO. 206 DUE FOR REPLY ON 3rd AUGUST, 2021.
(a): As informed by the Government of Uttar Pradesh, a total of 571 Farmer Producer Organizations (FPOs) have been registered in Uttar Pradesh. As informed by the Government of Rajasthan, a total of 334 FPOs have been registered in Rajasthan.
(b) & (c): Earlier various organizations viz. Small Farmers’ Agribusiness Consortium (SFAC), National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD) & Deendayal Antyodaya Yojana- National Rural Livelihood Mission (DAY-NRLM) have been promoting FPOs.
Government of India through Small Farmers’ Agribusiness Consortium (SFAC) has promoted Farmer Producer Organisations (FPOs) by mobilizing the farmers and helping them in registering as companies and providing them with handholding support and training for their sustainability. SFAC has undertaken various FPO promotion programmes in the country such as through Vegetable Initiative for Urban Cluster (VIUC), Mission Organic Value Chain Development (MOVCD), National Food for Security Mission (NFSM), Mission for Integrated Development of Horticulture (MIDH) etc.. Upto Rs.15.084 Lakh used to provided by SFAC towards the FPO management cost for a period of 03 years after its registration.
During 2014-15, the Government had created Producers’ Organization Development and Upliftment Corpus (PRODUCE) Fund with a corpus of Rs 200 crore in NABARD for the promotion of 2,000 FPOs in the country. Under PRODUCE maximum assistance of upto Rs 9.06 Lakh per FPO was available. NABARD has also introduced a scheme i.e. Producers’ Organization Development Fund – Interest Differential (PODF-ID) as the corpus has been augmented by way of appropriation of interest differential out of RIDF, for the promotion and nurturing of FPOs. Under PODF-ID maximum assistance of Rs 11.44 Lakh per FPO was available.
The FPOs are promoted under DAY-NRLM, to promote the livelihood to the farmers, under the scheme of which support is provided for human resource development & capacity building and fund for procurement of commodities from farmer members of the FPOs.
The FPO wise details of benefit already provided by respective FPO promoting organizations earlier for development of FPOs in Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan are at Annexure-I.
Realizing the significance of FPOs, Government of India has launched a dedicated farmer centric new Central Sector Scheme of “Formation and Promotion of 10,000 Farmer Producer Organisations (FPOs)”, which will help small and marginal farmers to form FPOs on sustainable basis and enhance their income.
Under the new Central Sector scheme, adequate provision for financial support and professional handholding to each FPO has been made, some of which are as follows:-
i. Provision of financial assistance to the tune of Rs.18 lakhs to each FPO under the scheme towards management cost for 3 years has been made.
ii. Provision has been made for matching equity grant upto Rs. 2,000 per farmer member of FPO with a limit of Rs. 15.00 lakh per FPO and;
iii. A credit guarantee facility upto Rs. 2 crore of project loan per FPO from eligible lending institution to ensure institutional credit accessibility to FPOs.
iv. Implementing Agencies (IAs) to form and promote FPOs through professional Cluster Based Business Organizations (CBBOs) to provide handholding support to each FPO for a period of 5 years.
v. Bankers Institute of Rural Development (BIRD), Lucknow and Laxmanrao Inamdar National Academy for Co-operative Research & Development (LINAC) to impart professional training for capacity & skill development of FPOs and CBBOs.
vi. At national level a National Project Management Agency (NPMA) has been engaged for providing overall project guidance, data maintenance and information management and monitoring.
vii. Existing FPOs can avail credit guarantee facility and advisory by NPMA.
(d) & (e): Under the said new Central Sector Scheme, provision has been made to form and promote 10,000 new FPOs.
Under the scheme, the formation and promotion of FPO is envisaged on the basis of Produce Cluster Area approach and specialized commodity based approach. In produce cluster approach provision has been made for forming & promotion of one FPO per block wherever feasible.
Under the aforesaid new Central Sector Scheme, in Uttar Pradesh, of the total 822 blocks, new FPOs produce clusters have been allocated in 180 blocks to IAs in produce cluster area approach. In addition, 35 specialized commodity based FPOs produce clusters have been allocated to IAs for formation of FPOs for creating end to end value chain for specialized commodities for processing and marketing purpose.
Similarly, Out of total 295 blocks in Rajasthan, new FPOs produce clusters have been allocated in 108 blocks in produce cluster area approach and 17 specialized commodity based FPOs produce clusters have been allocated to IAs for formation of FPOs.
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