A meeting of District Level Monitoring Committee (DLMC) for Formation and Promotion of Farmer Producer Organizations (FPO) was held under the Chairmanship of the Deputy Commissioner (DC) Srinagar, Mohammad Aijaz Asad today here on Friday at Conference Hall of DC Office Complex.
During the meeting, a detailed discussion was held on formation and promotion of Farmer Producer Organizations(FPOs) in Srinagar District to scale-up production, branding and marketing of produces under centrally sponsored scheme.
The meeting discussed the proposed plan for the setting up of FPOs in the identified clusters in Srinagar District. On the occasion, the DC gave approval for establishing 04 FPOs in Wanganpora-Noorbagh, Ranbirgarh, Danihama and Harwan under Central sector scheme in Srinagar which shall be promoted by SFAC and NAFED involving different agriculture products leading to the enhancing of farmer’s income besides generating employment opportunities for local unemployed youth.
The DC said that the new FPOs will be helpful to scale-up production, branding and marketing of agriculture and horticulture products like red chili, capsicum, tomatoes, cherry and other fruits.
He advised the concerned Departments to provide handholding support to the FPOs in market linkages through APEDA and Department of Horticulture Planning and Marketing.
On the occasion, the DC also appreciated the business efforts of two existing FPOs working in Srinagar on Lotus Stem (Nadru) and Organic vegetables supported by NABARD. He stressed upon these FPOs to carry out an economic analysis of their business activities for better profitability.
The DC asked Officers of the line Departments to identify the avenues for increasing the marketability and value addition of agriculture produce of the farmers in the District.
The DC said that a focused attention is being given for upliftment of the socio-economic sector to generate employment opportunities for the local people.
He said under this programme, the on-going schemes of the Government may also be converged to enhance the cost effectiveness of FPOs and create valuable infrastructure in the sector.
The DC directed the Agriculture and Horticulture Departments to sensitize farmers about the advantage of FPO for taking maximum benefits from their crops by selling their produce in an organized way.
The DC explained that the FPO is an institutional mechanism to reduce cost of production, increase per unit production and facilitate better market linkage so as to enhance the income of farmers.
He further said that by the formation of FPOs an end to end solution of the problems confronted by the farmers is being provided and farmers are free to manage their affairs from the production level to post harvest and marketing of their branded products thereby eliminating the clutches of the middle man and doubling farmer’s income.
Among others, the meeting was attended by Chief Planning Officer, Srinagar, Chief Agriculture Officer, Chief Horticulture Officer, DDM NABARD besides, representatives of NAFED, SFAC, CBBOs and other officers of Allied Departments.