Bhubaneswar: One of the key levers to increase farmer income is the disintermediation between retail and farm prices.
To accelerate this process, the Government of Odisha organized Agri Conclave and FPO Conclave for the first time in State. These conclaves provided the necessary platform where challenges across the agriculture value chain were discussed.
To assess, the progress made over the last year, a meeting was conducted at the office of Principal Advisor to the Chief Minister, said an official press release.
Department of Horticulture facilitated around 15 agri-entrepreneurs in having tie-ups with Farmers Producer Organisations (FPOs) across the State for their procurement.
The agripreneures who attended the meeting were a diverse group in terms of age, education, location, and size of operations.
The entrepreneur group included Corporate/ National players like Big Basket, Dehaat, Kazanan Agro Pvt. Ltd, Aceworx Synergistic Agribusiness Networks Pvt. Ltd., Felis Leo Ventures Pvt. Ltd., and Odisha-based start-ups like Origins, Mayurbhanj Grand Pvt. Ltd, AgriLink Food Processing Pvt. Ltd, AKM Agro Processing Pvt. Ltd, Relentless Foods Pvt. Ltd, Pranam4u Ventures Pvt. Ltd, Villa Mart, AgriSoul Organics, Mahalaxmi Trading, etc.
The FPOs with whom the players had tied up were not only from Khordha and Cuttack but also from Koraput, Dhenkanal, Kandhamal, Mayurbhanj, etc.
The produce procurement or intent to do so by these organizations ranged from millet, honey, lemongrass, moringa to cashews & paddy.
The Success-story of non-paddy produce such as lemongrass showed that with an application of correct economics even the tribal areas can also be transformed.
However, the transformation journey still has several opportunities for improvement. Several of these are needed for Primary processing, packaging & quality control.
Other is adherence to contractual norms, awareness about the benefits of aggregation, and professional operations of FPOs.
Continued engagement between FPOs, aggregators, and the government shall ensure that we can maximize farmer income at the earliest.
