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The central government proposes to make the Small Farmers’ Agri- business Consortium (SFAC) the nodal agency for production of certified states in order to tackle short supply of seeds in this kharif season.
According to official sources, as per the proposal submitted by SFAC which has received “in principle” approval of the ministry of agriculture, the subsidy given to various states for promoting seed production will be routed through the SFAC and not the indivisual states.
According to officials, the objective is to cut short the delay in routing the funds from the centre to states and then to state level nodal agencies and technical bodies and finally to the end user. On the other, since short supply of certified seeds already features prominently in the contingency plan of the government, delays have to be avoided in funding seed production, sources said.
On the other hand, the SFAC has already engaged itself in mobilizing SFAC in production of certified seeds, 2000 FPOs in particular in an agreement with NABARD (National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development) for production and distribution of certified seeds.
Besides, NABARD proposes to extend concessional credit limit to SFAC for expanding its procurement activities to many other commodities in the ensuing kharif season.
Currently it is engaged in procurement of pulses and oilseeds at minimum support price fixed for the commodities . As for the states, Madhya Pradesh has entrusted the responsibility to SFAC for mobilising FPOs for seed production in soyabean and West Bengal for mobilising 50 FPOs.
FPO is company set up by farmer producers of agricultural commodities. These FPOs will be promoted by the farmers, run by the farmers and for the benefits of the farmers. The objective of the FPO is to improve returns to farmers through collective inputs purchase, collective marketing, and processing, increasing productivity through better inputs, increasing knowledge of farmers and thus ensuring quality.
According to officials, the basic objective of FPO concept is to link small farmers to technology as well as to the markets in association with private, corporate or cooperative sector and if necessary, by providing backward and forward linkages. That is where the need comes to bring in corporate structure to induce governance and monitoring.
Earlier SFAC was given the mandate to engage FPOs to push production of pulses and oilseeds in the country to ensure adequacy under the Food Security Bill.
This was under technology mission for oilseeds and pulses owing to its inadequacy to cater to domestic demand. A grant of Rs 50 crore was allocated to small farmers’ agri business consortium, (SFAC).
