The national agricultural cooperative promoting federation of India (Nafed) is all set to roll out its 1st farmer facilitation centre (FFC) for farmer producer providers (FPCs) in Maharashtra in the 1st week of January 2021.
The facility is aspect of the initiative of Nafed to establish e-Kisan Mandis that would use the on-line model to attract purchasers and the offline model for physical delivery of commodities, Sanjeev Kumar Chadha, MD, Nafed, told FE.
The facility at Vashi, nonetheless, will bring farmer producer providers across the state collectively providing cleaning, sorting, grading, cleaning facilities and cooling facilities for all the FPCs beneath one particular roof, he stated. Nafed has offered the land for the facility.
The Vashi centre will be run by Shree Swami Samarth Farmer Producer Company (SSSFPCL). The agency runs weekly farmer markets and also sells fruits and vegetables to housing societies across Maharashtra.
Narendra Pawar, one particular of the directors and founder members of the enterprise, stated that the objective is to develop farmer clusters across the state specialising in agri-commodities like cucumber, carrots, brinjals and then supply these vegetables from the groups on the basis of pre-booked orders from clients.
Unlike mandis, exactly where all commodities are brought in one particular location and purchasers then turn up to buy the commodities, the notion right here is to guarantee that the vegetables are brought only via advance bookings via the contact centre, therefore, avoiding distress sales and heartburn for the farmer, he explained.
This will also decrease the value spread in between the main producer and the ultimate customer in addition to producing out there goods of farm origin to shoppers at a affordable value without having impairing the high-quality of generate, he stated. In the standard marketplace program, there is a lack of transparency in trade, which also leads to a burden of stock management expenditures on farmers, he pointed out.
The FPC has established 52 clusters for several commodities and more than 750 farmers are aspect of this initiative, he stated. A contact centre is now functional at Vashi, which has a database of some 3000 clients. The orders will be taken on telephone by the consumer care executives and sent to the respective FPC cluster for processing for the subsequent morning. The prices will be declared 12 hours just before the actual delivery to the consumer on the basis of benchmark costs in the marketplace, Pawar stated.
If this idea operates in Maharashtra, in particular considering that it is positioned in Vashi exactly where the country’s biggest APMC is positioned, the model can be replicated in other states. Vashi APMC is the country’s richest APMC with an annual turnover of Rs 20,000 crore.
Nafed has been designated as one particular of the implementing agencies for formation and promotion of 10,000 FPOs programme of the ministry of agriculture and farmers welfare. Nafed has acquired FIFA to provide marketplace linkage help to the FPOs for their generate and develop markets in partnership with the FPOs beneath the brand of Nafed e-Kisan Mandi (NeKM), which will be connected to the national digital promoting platform becoming produced by Nafed. Chadha stated that the 50 eKisan Mandis will be established by March subsequent year.