PERFORMANCE OF FARMER PRODUCER ORGANIZATIONS (FPOs) IN BIHAR FOR AUGMENTING THE FARMERS’ INCOME
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Date
2023
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Publisher
RPCAU, Pusa
Abstract
Farmers are principal members of Farmers Producers Organizations (FPOs), a specific class of POs that pact with the production, marketing, and value addition of agricultural products. The primary mission of FPO is to mobilize farmers into member-owned producer companies for enhancing the negotiation power of marginal and small farmers through developing a judicious economy of scale at farm gate. It is an important tool for shifting the focus of farmer from mere production to marketing of produce i.e., transforming agriculture to agri-business management (ABM) and to realise farmers that ‘agriculture is more than just cows and plows’. The study was performed in the Samastipur and Muzaffarpur district of Bihar state with an objective to analyse the impact of Farmer Producer Organisations (FPOs) on its member farmers. 5 FPOs were selected purposely since each FPO deal with different agricultural commodity. A total of 250 members (having at least 5 years of experiences in FPOs) were randomly selected for the study from each five FPOs at the rate of 50.An overview on socio- economic profile of member of FPO reveal that majority (73.20 %) of respondents belonged to middle aged category (36 – 50 years), 23.60% of the respondents had middle school level of education, majority (57.60%) of FPO members had low level of educational experiences (≤8 years), most of the respondents 29.20% belonged to SC/ST, half of the respondents (49.20 %) having medium size family (5-6 members), majority of the respondents (46%) were marginal farmers, majority (40%) of FPO members’ farm were at less distance (< 5 km) from FPO head office, 93.60% of respondents had a medium level of annual income before joining FPOs, majority (44.80%) of FPO members has participated in only one training programme, majority of FPO members has medium level of information source, leadership ability, risk orientation, economic motivation and achievement motivation. Performance of FPOs was measured through Index developed by Roy (2022). Analysis of the distribution of respondents on the basis of witnessed performance of FPO revealed that 60.80% of respondents witnessed a low level of overall performance of FPOs. PLUM analysis shows that witnessed performance of FPOs is strongly associated with age, family size, secondary occupation, source of information, distance of FPOs, training participation, leadership ability and achievement motivation. The unit increase in number of sources of information of respondents increases the odds of witnessing the performance of FPOs by 23.40 % at 95% confidence interval. Index was developed to measure the impact of FPOs. Index had six dimensions such as Economic Impact, Social Impact, Marketing Impact, Participatory Impact, Technological and food security impact. Analysis of the distribution of respondents on the basis of Impact of FPO revealed that on 77.60% of respondents’ overall impact of FPO was high. There were 15 variables fitting in the multivariate regression model. Nine variables out of fifteen, found significantly related and predicting the impact of FPO on the farmers at various levels of significance. Henry Garrett ranking technique was used for SWOT analysis determining the important constraints of Farmer Producer Organization. ‘Income stability due to assured price’, ‘Weak legal backup for the growers’, ‘Economical procurement of inputs’ and ‘Diversion of inputs by the farmers to other crops’ were the top strength, weakness, opportunity and threats of FPOs, respectively. Constraints factors were categorized under three category viz. organizational constraints, technical constraints and financial and market related constraints. ‘Less initiative from the BODs to actively involve the members in company activity’, ‘Inadequate and untimely supply of Agri-inputs from the producer company’ and ‘Lack of credit supply from the company for various agricultural operations’ were the main organizational constraints, technical constraints and financial and market related constraints of FPOs, respectively.