Status of Coconut Farmer Producer Companies (CPCs) in Western Tamil Nadu

Abstract

Coconut Producer Companies (CPC) are formed with the main objective of socio economic development of farmers by providing a fair, steady and reasonable income by organizing the unorganized coconut sector through farmer collectives. The specific objective of the study was to analyse the performance and to assess the problems faced by the CPCs in Western Tamil Nadu. For this study, the data was collected using Focus Group Discussion and personal interview. In India there are 67 registered CPCs, out of which 17 CPCs (25.4 percent) are from Tamil Nadu, in that nearly 15 percent are from Western Tamil Nadu. The study results showed that in Western Tamil Nadu majority (60 per cent) of the CPCs are financially supported by NABARD. All the CPCs are at the initial stage of its formation and having less than four years of its existence. Results also indicate that Majority of the CPCs are facing the problems of inadequate access to market, inadequate access to credit and weak financials at the initial stage. The study concluded that Unified Market License without payment of Mandi fees, convergence of resources for creation of farm level infrastructure i.e. specific schemes may be introduced for different activities like transportation, grading etc. and also the benefit of equity fund and credit Guarantee fund scheme of SFAC s may be extended to all forms of CPCs to overcome the weak financial access at the initial stage.