To be honest, you should have known this by now. But, it’s fine, here is the whole game changing story of "Farmers; from suppliers to the supply chain itself" in 400 words! If I ask, where are farmers in the supply chain of food industry? You would say, "Gentleman! Farmers are at the ignition stage of the process, the performance of the whole industry depends upon the produces by the farmers and they are very important stakeholders of the food industry."
I mean that's great, What a splendid explanation for the importance of farmers in the supply chain and that should explain that if Customer is King, Farmer has to be the Emperor controlling the dynamics of market along with the king; the modern customers/consumers with huge bargaining power. But's that didn't happened ever! Whole world have seen how industries sourced the produces from gigantic farmers, middlemen and government leaving behind millions with small produces. And, this so called "effective sourcing" by industries made small farmers to sell the produces either to government for Minimum Support Price or to the middlemen, paying them certain percentage of commission leaving behind the bills just enough to live a undervalued life with limited resources to grow and prosper. What amazed me is "Farmveda" (www.farmveda.in), a two year old, for profit company which produces RTE (Ready to Eat) Food like Dosa and Idli Mixes and all the profits goes to the farmers. Farmveda is supported by Centre for Collective development ( www.ccd.ngo) where 23,000+ farmers have come together from 785 villages of India to form 306 cooperatives generating revenue of Rs. 58 crores (i.e. USD 8.02 million) this year.
Now, if you want to say something, Say "wow", because this is something incredible happening, which is going to change the fate of Indian farmers very soon, as the young leaders of the nation like you are definitely going to support Farmveda-owned by the farmers of India. So, this is the story of Indian farmers from being a mere supplier to owning the supply chain by adopting the supplying chain processes for value addition and by collaborating with Amazons and Big baskets of the world. Comment below and let the farmers know, that you are going to be the part of their incredible story.