FPOs will make Agriculture More Viable: Parshottam Rupala

Union Ministers of State for Agriculture and Farmers Welfare Parshottam Rupala & Kailash Choudhary inaugurated the professional training programmes designed as well as developed for the CEOs, Board of Directors, Accountants of Farmer Produce Organizations (FPO) on the anniversary of the Central Sector Scheme 'Formation and Promotion of 10,000 Farmer Produce Organizations (FPOs)'.

The scheme was launched by PM Modi on 29 Feb 2020 at Chitrakoot, Uttar Pradesh with a budgetary provision of Rs 6865 crore. Rupala also gave certificates of registration issued by the Ministry of Corporate Affairs to new the FPOs.

There are well-defined training structures in the yojana and the institutions such as Bankers Institute of Rural Development (BIRD), Lucknow & Laxmanrao Inamdar National Academy for Co-operative Research & Development (LINAC), Gurugram have been selected as the lead training institutes for capacity development and training of FPOs.

Rupala said Farmer Produce Organizations will make farming more viable by aggregating land. He added that the formation of FPOs is not just a scheme but it is a plan to give a new dimension to Indian Agriculture in a new India.

On the other hand, Kailash Choudhary described the scheme as ‘revolutionary’ adding that it would bring transformation in farmers' life. He suggested the officials to prepare a pocketbook on guidelines for the formation of FPOs in regional languages so that more & more farmers know about it. 

Secretary of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare, Sanjay Agrawal said that in each block there should be a FPO that acts as catalyst for institutional infrastructure.

Formation of 10,000 FPOs scheme would promote the selling of farmers produce from the farm gate of farmers thereby increasing their income. It will also accelerate more investment in marketing & value addition infrastructure near to farm gate generating more employment opportunities for rural youth.