Introduction :
The Use case is piloted with Saharapada FPO in Keonjhar district . the FPO was incorporated in 10th November ,2020. The FPO is functional in 38 villages and has currently 550 registered members with them. The FPO is in to various businesses like Soilless sapling , Stitching of Petticoats and other cloth materials , production of Some of the household items like Phenyl , Liquid Soap etc. Out of all the business activities , Soilless sapling business is one of the most demanding and profitable business for the FPO . The FPO is currently engaged with 1500 farmers( including members and non members ) for the Sapling business and has a turnover of 5 lakhs from the same.
Proposed Pilot : Community Nursery
Background:
The FPO is involved in the soilless sapling business since March, 2022 in traditional approach , without proper poly house structure . Nursery is spread over 27 villages depending on the indent received from the PGs by the farmers. Nursery is given to the identified families who have access to Land and Water and have experience in nursery raising. AHO and Krushiksathi ( volunteer for the Agri department) provide technical support to the individual families who is raising the nursery .
With the increasing demand for soilless saplings ,the FPO is not able to fulfill the demand of the saplings currently due to unavailability of proper space, technology & Capital. Due to the increased demand and profitability , the FPO has decided to have a proper technologically advanced poly house which can cater unto 3000 farmers covering 25 villages . The establishment of community Nursey will help the farmers to grow nutrients reach vegetable in an affordable cost .
DG Support :
A grant to demonstrate and establish the poly house , deliver value to members and serve as training wheels which can then unlock more commercial capital .
FPO deploys grant capital and delivers increased income and co-benefits to members. Also builds a track record that can be used to unlock additional financing from government subsidy programs and commercial lenders in the later stage.
Anticipated Benefits of the Nursery :
Benefits to the farmers :
Availability of quality seedlings in time and affordable price.
The soilless saplings are less prone to pest and diseases ( Risk of crop damage reduces )
increase in the income generation ( 40000/farmer in Kharif )
opportunity to connect with institutional buyers .
Benefits to the FPO :
Relationship with the shareholders and non - shareholders increases ( Increase in the number of share holder leads to increase in share capital )
Internal Data Sharing will increase governance and trust among the shareholders.
Partnership with Govt & non-Govt Organization ( By sharing the required Data Back )
250000 profit to the FPO in a season ( Increases turnover )
Increase in turnover will help FPO to access Capital from Banking & Non-Banking Sectors .
Gender Transformative :
The FPO is a complete women based FPO . The women BODs & and the members are actively involved in the day to day activity of the nursery starting from Procurement of seeds , raising the nursey bed & Marketing of the saplings . The women members are collecting and recording the demand and other information in the registers . The use of application for collecting the data in KDE or storing the information in soft format will make there work easier and will increase there access to the data. The women working in the nursery or involved in the data collection will receive wages , which in turn transforms their livelihoods.
Climate Smart :
The saplings can be grown in partial of fully controlled environment which increases the yield by 5-10 % and increases the land fertility with time . The saplings are less prone to pest and diseases which decreases the use of chemical fertilizer and pesticides . This also increases the availability of nutrient rich vegetables.
Data opportunity : (Benefits from service providers)
The FPO is currently collecting the indent from the PG meetings through CRPs in register . The collation of the total demand & variety is getting difficult for the members for which they are not able to reach directly to the Seed companies (Ex - Namdhari seeds) . The KDE application will help in collecting the indent and sharing this data with the seed providers will increase the bargaining power of the FPO . The FPO will get a discount of at least 10% on the seeds , which will eventually decrease the coast of production and increase the profit of the FPO.
With the help of the Member farmer information ( Name, location , crop , land details) & FPO information's ( Total shareholders, Capital available, Area of operation , Turn over ) , they will have access to the different schemes of Horticulture and Agriculture departments . This information will also help them in applying for Capital with Banking & Non- Banking Organizations.
The FPO is not able to anticipate the expected output quantity and quality from the farmers , for which they are not able to tie up with different Institutional buyer ( Ex - Reliance ) or Big Local traders in the Market.
With the proper information about the variety of the saplings used by the farmers, providing different information regarding package of practices and pest management will be easier. The technical assistance received from the department ( Horticulture ) can be sent to the farmers in time .