‘Agri business cooperatives for every village to strengthen rural economy’

livemint.com:

NEW DELHI : The government will set up agriculture-focused cooperative societies in every village where one doesn’t exist now, and will develop them into multi-sector units, giving a major fillip to the cooperative movement, NITI Aayog member Ramesh Chand said. “A big movement toward rural cooperatives is happening. The government plans to set up one cooperative in agri-business in every village, where they are not there.

That is the target," Chand said in an interview. In the second stage, they will be expanded to multi-sector cooperatives dealing not only in farm produce, but also in other products. “They can go for storage of produce and they can export." The idea is to strengthen the rural economy and achieve what the government calls “prosperity through cooperation".

Chand said that strengthening farmer producer organizations is a priority for the government. Prime Minister Narendra Modi launching on-boarding of 1,600 farmer producer organizations (FPOs) in Open Network Digital Commerce (ONDC) last month is a new initiative in this regard, he said. “ONDC can revolutionise agriculture marketing.

Through ONDC, FPOs can sell to any wholesaler, business or consumer. This is going to be a game changer," said Chand, adding that state-level agriculture produce marketing committee (APMC) Acts are not applicable to electronic transactions. Chand explained that onboarding FPOs into ONDC does not require any budget allocation and that the capacity-building needed will be done by an agency under the agriculture ministry.