COMMUNITY INSTITUTION AND FARMER PRODUCERS COMPANY: A CASE FROM BACKWARD DISTRICT OF ODISHA, INDIA

Abstract

The future of Indian Agriculture to a great extent lies in induction of investment and appropriate
technology for promotion of cash crop, scaling up productivity and return to the primary producers. As
technology is not scale neutral and induction of appropriate technology requires an optimum size of the
holding, fragmented holdings with small and marginal farmers constitute bulk (about 86.2% of the total land
holding) pose huge impediments across the entire value chain. The traditional value chain network lack
supportive and effective coordination with in the market integration and often seriously constrain ability of
the primary producers in getting the best from a given market condition. Over the period, the low sectoral
performances have a concern towards agricultural sustainability along with the livelihood of primary stake
holder, whose part of share is less in consumer price. Since independence several attempts have been made
for promoting cooperative of farmers for pooling their resources but unfortunately barring few sectors and
specific geographic areas like success of milk cooperatives in Gujarat, Cooperative movements in general
have faced limitation. In this background, amendment of IX A in Section 581 of Companies Act 1956 in
2003 provided an alternative by facilitating incorporation for Farmers Producers Company. The study has
examined the role of social and community institution in strengthening the Farmer producers company. Due
to various reasons, traditional Cooperatives lost their vibrancy and efficiency. As an alternative to the
traditional cooperative, Farmer Producer Company has evolved from market thrust and orientation, which
provide for flexibility, vertical integration and coordination with better backward and forward linkage. This
area was chosen for study as it is predominantly inhabited by tribal, majority of who are small and marginal
farmers, with limited access and awareness to govt schemes. In this era of cropping diversity, technological
innovation, market competition; there is a need for collective approach for leveraging the benefits to the
primary producers, who have come together under the umbrella of Farmer Producers Company (FPC). The
farmers were mobilised by advocating the cost benefit analysis of Seeds production and processing.
KARRTABYA as a community Institution provide a hand holding support to the producers through
Knowledge, Financial, Market linkage & Farmer Welfare Activities. It has been found that as an Institution,
FPC has been able to gear up for protecting the interest of the small and marginal farmers from the effect of
liberalization. The working model of Producers Company and benefit that can be obtain when farmers group
work with collective approach in primary production, processing, value addition and marketing. Collective
and collaborative approaches have enabled them to face the market competition and safeguard their interest
by effective bargain with the opponents, importers and traders