Saharapada FPC, Keonjhar

Date

02/09/2022

Participants

• FPC Chairperson

• FPC BOD members X 5

• CYSD project coordinator

Digital Green:

• @Ronali Pradhan (Unlicensed) @Chandan Dash (Unlicensed) @Amrita Das (Unlicensed) @ashok

• @Gautam Mandewalker @Rubesh @chandrashekar M S @Waseem @Ramaskanda R S @vignesh (Unlicensed)

What was your objective to start the FPC ?

More income generation and helping the community.

Lets list the strengths the FPC and the team.

1. We have 580 Share holders

2. Women share holders

3. Motivated leadership members

4. Good digital literacy

5. Good business sense

6. Understanding about crop planning to take benefit of offseason pricing. We have successfully helped farmers on Cauliflower and Cabbages.

7. We were able to get MIDH govt scheme for farmers, where 80 farmers got Rs. 4000/Acre.
   150 have applied for this season. Documentation process is difficult because of discrepancies in the documents.

8. We have established SHGs and Gram panchayat federations.

9. We have support of NGOs

10. We have some share capital in hand :
    1.5 Lacs (580 x Rs. 200)

11. We have variety of crops
    a) Vegetables
    b) Mushroom
    c) Pigeon Pea
    d) Green Gram
    e) Sesame

12. Learning from past 5 years

Lets see your progress and what do you want to target.

2017 ( 550 Members) → 2018-2022 ( 580 Members) → 2023 (1500 Members → 2025 (3000 Members)

Why there is so slow growth from 2017 to 2022. Only 30 members were added?

1. Initially we were trying out lot of things and there was no clear direction.

2. We were not able to show good progress to members. So, most of them became dormant.

3. We were not able to see the the benefits and advantages clearly.

How do you think you will reach 1500 Members and make old members active?

1. Education to share holders

2. Educate about current business

3. Business plan and professional training to FPC BOD on governance etc.

4. Process training

5. Videos

6. Paid CRPs

7. Funds.

What are your current business activities and what more are you interested in?

1. Nursery

2. Mushrooms training and later procurement and trading

3. Inputs - Seeds and Fertilisers

What benefits will these business activities give your share holders?

1. Timely supply of inputs

2. Quality of inputs

3. Trader connections

4. Mushroom is less labour intensive, it can attract members who cannot do agriculture.

5. It can provide extra income to members

6. Price benefits on inputs to members

7. If profitable then we will give dividends to share holders.

What benefits will these business activities give to the FPC?

1. Business expansion

2. Networking

3. Increase trust in members

4. More members may join

5. Can make us eligible for more funds, loans and schemes

6. We can have more human resources to manage the business

1. We got great support form Digital Green

2. We have a good structure which can work for us for long term

3. We got immediate access to skilled labour

4. We can not deliver saplings on time to farmers

5. We gained good knowledge

6. Data officers were useful they were doing good job of collecting orders

1. Total orders received is 242

2. Advance paid is 87 Only and not every one paid full money. Some paid only token money.

Why do you think not all farmers paid advance?

Its because of the trust. We need show results first.

We made them list the:

1. Demand collected (for each variety)

2. Plant being grown (for each variety)

3. Plants sold (for each variety)

4. Stock left ( (for each variety)

There was huge stock left which they said will be cleared out. But they accepted that it was slightly bad planning as were are not sure what has to be done.

Also, it have been too much overwhelming for the BOD as they are doing everything.

There was no business plan, SOP provided to them. May be we rushed into it as season was approaching.

How do you think you can get advance on all or more number of orders:

1. PG level, president can help in getting orders

2. BOD members in their region can influence.

3. Good mobilization by one of the BOD members in her region helped in collecting advance payment. Orders with advan7ce payments are from her region.