“India is committed to transforming the subsistence economy of agriculture into an enterprise”

“Today India is committed to transforming the subsistence economy of agriculture into an enterprise and our farmers as entrepreneurs, where we would like to have an agribusiness model,” said Dr Ashok Dalwai, Chairperson & Chief Executive Officer, Committee for Doubling Farmer's Income & National Rainfed Area Authority. Speaking at a recent virtual event on “Farmer Producer Organisation Summit 2021” he said “The government and the country at large are committed to the welfare of India’s farmers. Farmers welfare is possible by strengthening their income levels, as it is the income levels that determine the purchasing power, the ability to save and plough back the surpluses into new technology, new business management principles and other forms of investment required in an enterprise.”

He further said “It is very critical that we adopt the basic principles of profits centricity. That entails the need to achieve high volumes of production based on productivity and good resource use efficiency and simultaneously monetising all the produce that the farmers generate, particularly with reference with the marketable surplus ratios. The agriculture sector would need technology that is continuously being upgraded, an investment in agri logistics and other forms of backward and forward linkages, self up-gradation in terms of knowledge, innovation, and managing agriculture as an enterprise. However one of the constraints that

Indian farmers face, is the small size of the farms. Farm sizes are small and marginal. This problem is compounded by the fact that the land parcels are fragmented. With this kind of land division and fragmentation the operation scales that are required to adopt new technology, new capital and new investment, cost efficiency becomes a very difficult proposition. Hence, we need to go into mobilising the farmers into producers organisations as has happened in several countries, India itself has tried this in the last few decades.”

Talking about producers’ organisations he said “The advantages of having a producers organisation of the farmers is that we will be able to achieve higher efficiency at both input and output management levels. We would be able to integrate the farm produce into the market in a more effective manner. We all know farmers in the farm gate constitute the starting point of any supply chain. If we want an efficient supply chain with the advantages to the farmers as well as the consumers, it is important that the farmers are imparted what is called the bargaining power. Unless we are able to impart bargaining power to the farmers at the farm gate level they would not be able to achieve the higher ratio of the share that the consumers would. When we are able to mobilise the farmer producers organisation, we would be helping them to achieve efficiency at the production stage. It simultaneously enables them to negotiate the risks that are very common with agriculture which is both biologically dependent at the production stage and of course is subject to market fluctuations at the post-production stage. Producers’ organisations of the farmers