NEW DELHI: The federal government is prone to announce two mega agriculture initiatives one associated to crop diversification and one other on monetary help to create Farmer Producer Organisations (FPOs) within the price range.
ET was the primary to report on October 11 concerning the Rs 7,000-crore FPO programme a promise made by finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman within the earlier price range the place the federal government is predicted to assist nurture 10,000 such FPOs.
These FPOs organised teams of small and marginal farmers will assist farmers enhance their incomes via higher market entry and collective bargaining energy.
The agriculture ministry will fund, handhold, prepare, guarantee simple credit score and supply different assist to FPOs to make them viable. The federal government may even present them with technological intervention for higher output. The principle problem earlier than FPOs is availability of credit score as banks dont give them loans owing to unsecured returns, a authorities official mentioned. With authoritiess fairness, FPOs will have the ability to have quick access to credit score backed by sovereign assure. This can assist FPOs broaden their operations.
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The FPOs will run as enterprise items and the earnings they generate will likely be shared between member-farmers. Like a company physique, these FPOs may even have capacity-building programmes to boost their competitiveness.
The federal government might also roll out a Rs 500-600 crore crop diversification programme to advertise crops apart from water guzzling paddy in Punjab, Haryana and western Uttar Pradesh, the place the water desk is depleting because of overexploitation of floor water.
The programme is aimed toward bettering soil well being and to keep up equilibrium within the agri-ecosystem.
Within the final kharif season, Haryana had launched a pilot venture to divert 50,000 hectares from cultivation of paddy to maize and pulses. It had supplied incentives to farmers by giving free seeds, free insurance coverage and monetary help of Rs 2,000 its infrastructure to make its community per acre for a similar.
