Agricultural Marketing
11.12 Training, Research and Consultancies Activities
a) The agricultural marketing has become important in helping farmers
fruits and vegetables. Taking this into consideration, CCS NIAM has conducted programmes on wide range of aspects for this sector namely: National Agriculture Market, Crop Insurance, Value chain analysis & development, Agribusiness opportunity & marketing strategy for organic produce, Marketing of medicinal plants, Farmer Producers Organisations. b) Aggregation through FPOs has been
studied and a three month residential certificate course has been designed for CEO’s and other office bearers of farmer Producer Organisation (FPOs) by the Institute in association with Bankers Institute of Rural Development (BIRD), Lucknow to implement business plans and bring sustainability to their operations.
c) Farmer Business School is an initiative of the Institute to help farmers enhance their income. The initiative is based on the concept developed by FAO and focusses on bringing paradigm change in training primary producers mainly smallholders to enable them become efficient managers and entrepreneurs.
d) CCS NIAM in collaboration with Andhra Pradesh State Warehouse Corporation, Hyderabad started a unique initiative of organizing a series of training programs on agri-warehousing and Scientific Storage Practices for warehouse managers, other officers and staff of the Corporation. In the series, three training programs for a total of 60 participants were organized at Tirupati, Vijayawada and Vishakhapatnam during the year 2016-17.
e) A workshop was organized by CCS NIAM in collaboration with Bihar Agricultural
Purnea. This workshop was attended by more than 175 Makhana cultivators, processors, wholesalers and other stakeholders from different districts like Purnea, Katihar, Darabhanga, Madhepura, Supaul, Saharsa and Kishanganj.
f) Entrepreneurship Development Programme were organized for rubber growers in North East Region to improve entrepreneural skill of the small and marginal growers. The program oriented participants to think beyond their regular cultivation aspects and consider rubber cultivation as a business.
g) Realising that agriculture markets have potential to contribute in big way towards “Swachh Bharat Abhiyan” of Government of India, a training program was designed by the Institute to implement the principles of “Swachh Bharat Abhiyan” in Agricultural Marketing leading to enhanced cleanliness in mandies and reduction in post-harvest losses. The program was well received by the participants and the state government encouraging CCS NIAM to implement the component at large scale in future.
h) CCS NIAM has conducted one International Training Program on emerging trends in fruits and vegetable marketing funded by USAID, New Delhi. In the program, 27 participants were enrolled from 09 countries namely Liberia, Kenya, Malawi, Botswana, Mozambique, Afghanistan, Mongolia, Indonesia and Cambodia with an aim to understand new trends in marketing of fruits and vegetables so that the producers and markets and their users in Africa and Asia can be prepared to face challenges and participate in emerging opportunities.
i) During this period the Institute has organized 51 training programs, 04 Consultancies, 02 Professional Course and 06 Survey and Research and 01 Conference on Pradhan Mantri Fasal Beema Yojana. In total, 64 programs were conducted and a total of 2088 stakeholders were trained in the field of agricultural marketing.
Small Farmers’ Agribusiness Consortium (SFAC):
11.13 SFAC was set up as a registered society on 18 January, 1994. Currently, the members of SFAC include RBI, SBI, IDBI, EXIM Bank, Oriental Bank of Commerce, NABARD, Canara Bank, NAFED etc. SFAC is implementing a Central Sector Scheme for Agribusiness Development through Venture Capital Assistance (VCA) to qualifying projects, which promotes linkages with farmers for procurement of their produce as raw material and provides employment in rural areas and has term-loan sanctioned by any Notified Financial Institution such as Nationalized Banks, IDBI, SIDBI, NABARD, NCDC, NEDFI, Exim Bank, RRBs and State Financial Corporations. The mission of the Society is to support innovative ideas for generating income and employment in rural areas by promoting private investment in agri-business projects.
11.13.1 Venture Capital Assistance (VCA) SFAC is implementing the Central Sector Scheme for agribusiness development in association with 43 Commercial Banks as on date for providing (i) Venture Capital to agribusiness projects, and (ii) assistance to farmers / products groups for preparing bankable Detailed Project Reports (DPR).
Since the inception of the Scheme, DAC&FW released an amount of Rs. 575.76 crore till 10.11.2017, against which the expenditure of Rs. 542.45 crore had been incurred. SFAC
has assisted total 1793 agribusiness projects and sanctioned/released Venture Capital Assistance of Rs. 528.01 crores generating private and institutional investment of Rs. 6303.86 crore, which will provide an assured market to 1.57 lakhs farmers for their produce and create direct employment for 84185 persons. During the year 2017- 18 up to 30.11.2017, SFAC has sanctioned Venture Capital amount of Rs. 47.64 crore to 170 agribusiness projects across the country with total private & institutional investment of Rs. 518.23 crore. Farmers Producer Organizations (FPOs)-
11.13.2 Formation of Farmer Producer Organization:
SFAC was mandated by Department of Agriculture, Cooperation and Farmers Welfare, Government of India to support State governments in formation of Farmer Producer Organizations (FPOs). The initiative which started in 2011-12 under the two Central Sector Schemes for Vegetables for Urban Clusters (VIUC) and Integrated Development of Pulse Villages in Rain fed Areas has expanded in it’s scope and covers special FPO projects being undertaken by some State Governments under general RKVY funds as well as under the National Demonstration Project under National Food Security Mission (NFSM) and Mission for Integrated Development of Horticulture (MIDH). As on 31st December 2017, 693 FPOs have been registered and 109 are under the process of registration.
11.13.3 Equity Grant Scheme and Credit Guarantee Fund Scheme for Farmer Producer Companies :
a) SFAC is also taking up the implementation of the Equity Grant and Credit Guarantee Fund Scheme for Farmer Producer Companies to increase
institutional borrowing from banks as approved by the EFC during 2013- 14. Equity Grant Scheme will enable registered farmer producer companies to access matching equity grant up to a maximum of Rs.10.00 lakh per FPC. The Credit Guarantee Fund has been set up with the primary objective of providing a Credit Guarantee Cover to Eligible Lending Institutes (ELIs) providing loans to Farmer Producer Companies (FPCs) without collateral up to Rs.1.00 crore. An outlay of Rs.150.00 crores has been sanctioned during 2013-14 for the Scheme (Rs. 50.00 crore for Equity Grant and Rs. 100.00 crores for Credit Guarantee Scheme).
b) Banks have signed MoU with SFAC under Credit Guarantee Fund Scheme for FPCs. (Canara Bank, State Bank of India, NABARD, IDBI, NABARD Financial Services, PNB, Indian Bank, Bank of India, NABKISAN Finance Ltd., RBL Bank, HDFC Bank, Yes Bank & Sarva Haryana Gramin Bank, Assam Gramin Vikash Bank, Axis Bank Ltd., Oriental Bank of Commerce, Corporation Bank, Pallavan Grama Bank, Bank of Baroda, Pragathi Krishna Gramin Bank and Bank of Maharashtra). SFAC is organizing awareness camps to publicize the Equity Grant and Credit Guarantee Fund Scheme all over India.
c) So far,SFAC has sanctioned Equity Grant to 154 farmer Producer Companies (FPCs) amounting to Rs. 8.54 crore and Credit Guarantee to 26 FPCs for Rs. 11.78 crores. SFAC is organizing awareness camps to publicize the Equity Grant and Credit Guarantee Fund Scheme all over
State-wise sanctioned project- Credit Guarantee fund scheme from 2014-15 to 2017-18
SN Bank-wise No. of
cases C.G. cover sanctioned (Rs. In lakhs)
1 Haryana I 42.50
2 Rajasthan 2 39.10
3 Madhya
Pradesh 8 467.36
4 Tamil Nadu 12 484.30
5 Maharashtra 2 80.75
6 Kerala 1 63.75
7 Total 26 1177.76
Bank-wise sanctioned project - Credit Guarantee fund scheme from 2014-15 to 2017-18
S.N. Bank-wise No. of
cases C.G. cover sanctioned (Rs. in lakhs) 1 IDBI Bank
Limited 6 346.66
2 NABARD 4 152.80
3 State Bank of
India 2 62.90
4 Canara Bank 5 195.50
5 Yes Bank 1 21.25
6 NABKISAN
Finance Ltd 3 160.65
7 Indian Bank 5 238.00
8 Total 26 1177.76