Work done by Centre for Collective Development and Farmveda since Dec 2017

We have taken up promotion of organic farming in a significant way this year. This was after a pilot last year which was successful. This brings down cost and yields go up. We are now tying up the marketing to realize even better profits for the farmers. The Federation in Anantapur and Adilabad did seed distribution. This was on behalf of the Government. This ensures that high quality, low cost seed is available to farmers – something that the Government distribution does not. This year we further expanded the reach of seed distribution. The federation also gets a service fee for doing this, which again benefits the farmers. The Federations in Anantapur and Adilabad did Minimum Support Price (MSP) procurement again on behalf of the Government. This was need was there because the government is not able to reach interior areas and also there are reports of farmers not going there because of issues at the procurement centre. But because this year the MSP centres were run by the farmer federation, huge procurement took place. In Anantapur alone about Rs.38 crore of procurement was there, with a net benefit of Rs.720 per quintal. The net  incomes of farmers more than doubled. For instance income net of costs per quintal was around Rs.500. Now it went to Rs.500+Rs.720.  We expect more MSP centres to be opened. The Federation also gets a service feee for this work which further benefits the farmers. In Adilabad the toor dal procurement centre under MSP was a significant step. We had to go from the District Manager of Markfed (the government agency for MSP) to the GM< to the MD to the Additional Secretary in Hyderabad. The farmers themselves talked to them and obtained the MSP centre. This resulted in a benefit of Rs.950 per quintal and the total procurement was over Rs.10 crores. The extra net income for farmers on this account more than doubled. We expect to further increase this next year by opening more centres.

Kris Gopalakrishnan, co-founder Infosys was the Chief Guest at the AGM of the Anantapur Federation on June 16, 2018. He was very appreciative of the work. He said we are poised for take off on a very large scale – “I meant all what I said. Your work is inspiring and is making a difference. It needs scaling up to benefit more farmers.” He is also partially supporting this work. We are launching a TCS based cloud system to capture the procurement in all villages. This system was developed by TCS under their CSR pro bono in collaboration with CCD. This means that as any farmer goes to his local village procurement centre, the data is entered onto a tablet. This enables us to now get real time data. This is right now being rolled out in a small way. Earlier we were all on paper and had to first enter it on paper and then again on the computers. In Chittoor District, the farmer federation has mobilized Government funds of Rs 1 crores for a mango and fruit ripening centre. The farmers contribution is Rs. 34 lakhs. This is now under construction. With this the farmers can realize much higher income. Another such centre has been sanctioned also. The federations all made profits again on a much higher level. The reserves and surplus in the Farmer federations has increased considerably this year as they have mobilized savings from farmers, brought more farmers into the fold, and also increased the surplus earned. We are expanding our work to several states – Karnataka, Odisha, Jharkhand and Rajasthan this year and work for setting up FPOS there has started. We are right now funding this pilot work through private donations. We are looking for large funds for grounding this work there.

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