Farmer Producer Companies in India: An Overview

Abstract

Farmer Producer Companies (FPCs) have emerged as a solution to the problems that small and marginal farmers confront with. This study probed into the reasons for the farmer-producer companies’ establishment, as stated in different policy documents and past literature. Performance of Farmers Producer Companies has improved significantly; however, the emergence of FPCs in India has not been consistent across the states. This paper examines the current status, geographical spread and functions of Farmer's Producer Companies (FPCs) across India, as well as suggests suitable measure to their performance. The study indicated that a total of 6471 FPCs were formed, in which around 80 per cent i.e. 5145 FPCs were promoted by Small Farmers Agri-business Consortium (SFAC) and National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD), 1263 FPCs were promoted by various state government and other agencies, and 63 of them were self-promoted. More than 50 per cent of the FPCs are set up in Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Uttarakhand, West Bengal, Karnataka, Odisha and Telangana.  SFAC promoted large number of FPCs in Madhya Pradesh (149 FPCs) and NABARD has promoted large number of FPCs in Uttarakhand (362). The number of farmers mobilised through FPCs by SFAC and NABARD were highest in the state of Madhya Pradesh with 183517 farmer members, followed by Karnataka with 176732 farmer members. There were a number of factors that influenced state performance, and this study suggested some strategies to overcome them in order to promote the growth of FPCs in India.