Conference on ‘Scope of Public-Private Partnership in Agriculture' Held in New Delhi

Today in New Delhi, the Government of India's Department of Agriculture and Farmer Welfare, in collaboration with the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry, hosted a conference on the "Scope of Public Private Partnership in Agriculture."

Manoj Ahuja, Secretary, Department of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare, Government of India, delivered the Keynote Address on the Government's Expectations from Industry, emphasizing the incorporation of private-sector expectations in the formulation of architectural frameworks for sector development, shared understanding, knowledge, and resources for overall development.

N. Vijayalakshmi, JS (Marketing), in her address, emphasized the importance of strengthening the four I's, namely inputs, infrastructure, investments, and institutions, in developing a conducive ecosystem for PPP projects in agriculture.

Samuel Praveen Kumar, Joint Secretary (Extension, AIF, and I&PS), Department of Agriculture & Farmers Welfare, spoke about agriculture de-risking and the importance of developing scalable, viable, and replicable business models that leverage the strengths of the public and private sectors to create a "win-win" situation.

In his address, Pravesh Sharma, Chairman of the FICCI Task Force on FPOs, emphasized the importance of developing synergy between government and private players in order to focus investments on Technology, Capital, and Market Linkage.

Several industry experts highlighted various gaps as major areas of concern, such as "knowledge gaps to farmers," "lack of basic infrastructure," and "quality of inputs." Some also mentioned the problem of Ministries/Departments and stakeholders working in silos.

Samuel Praveen Kumar presided over the session on the States' Perspective on PPP in Agriculture, which was moderated by Hemendra Mathur, Chairman, FICCI Task Force on Start-ups.

States emphasized the importance of farm gate infrastructure for grading, sorting, and primary processing of produce to reduce post-harvest losses, logistic services to work in tandem with producers, infrastructure to meet export requirements, and an open network to collect data directly from farmers, and knowledge distribution. More than 100 people attended the consultation, including state government representatives, Agritech start-ups, private sector players, FPO members, Agri industry experts, and investors.