NGO supports FPOs to create millet value chain in Odisha

New Delhi, Aug 31: NGO Rise Against Hunger India ( Rahi) on Monday said it has launched a project to create an end- to- end value chain for millet farmers in Bargarh district, Odisha and is supporting five Farmer Producer Organisations ( FPOs).

Bengaluru- based Rahi is helping 800 farmers under these five FPOs to improve yield through agri- tools, equipment and other inputs, it said.

This kind of rural projects will bring resilience in the rural farmers who are now left with no option but to migrate to the cities, it added.

"As part of its Covid- 19 response, a few projects have been launched. One of the projects, focused on creating end to end value chain for millets, has been initiated in Bargarh, Odisha," the NGO said in a statement.

For the past few years, some farmers have shifted from paddy to finger- millet cultivation and it is now receiving wider acceptance in the area.

Rahi said FPOs have become a common vehicle to share resources and inputs and they also provide an assured market platform in the absence of which an individual farmer would be subject to the whims and fancies of private vendors.

Farmers are expecting 80- 100 per cent growth in production and 100 per cent increase their income per acre of land. With an assured income, the farmers will have better resilience with less dependence on migrant income, it added.

In the past, Rahi programmes were carried out in Ri- Bhoi district of Meghalaya to create value chains for pineapple and banana farmers.

Currently, Rahi is working in four tribal villages of Bhil tribes in Dhar, Madhya Pradesh to create an end- to- end value chain for goat farmers. "Hunger and lack of income is the biggest enemy for the rural poor,” Rahi executive director Dola Mohapatra said.