Reliance Foundation and NABFoundation FPO Event

Owned by Ashu Sikri (Unlicensed)
Last updated: Oct 18, 2022
3 min read

Notes and action items from Oct 18 event hosted by Reliance Foundation and NABFoundation (part of NABARD)

@Ravi Shankar Sharma (Unlicensed) let me know how you want to take the convos forward as many of them are with RIs / FPOs who are prospects. @Gautam Mandewalker and @Sai FYI.

Agenda

  • Jai Pawar (+919998134545) and Archana Joshi of Deepak Foundation which is launching ~ 15 all women FPOs. Some areas of interest:

    • Financial literacy for women FPO members and leadership; financial statements in particular

    • Interfaces that are not text heavy but voice and photo based are critical as literacy is a challenge

    • Currently using an app called KrishiMandir for disseminating advisories, apparently it has a feature similar to Plantix where farmers can snap a photo of a pest issue and get recommended actions which farmers like.

  • Rahul Godse (+919850002839) from MahaFPC.

    • Federation of FPCs in Maharashtra that works with 3 lakh farmers

    • Already have a bunch of technology and looking in SAP for ERP but wants something simple for coordination

  • Rajeev Ranjan (+919431340503) from PRADAN in Jharkhand

    • Supporting ~70 women building from existing SHGs

    • FPO members are also SHG members and access credit from the SHG channel to cover working capital needs of FPOs (we are seeing something similar in Odisha w Saharapada)

    • Success with poultry, 9 cooperatives with ~5k members who are earning 50-60k annual income

  • CS Reddy (+919440800600) from APMAS

    • Curious about status of the videos we recorded we them

    • Likes the idea of focusing on member comms / engagement. Recommended we speak with Madhumurthy on his team (we should ping CS and he will connect us)

    • APMAS engaged with ~250 FPOs total across AP, Telanaga and Bihar (promoted 70 on their own, CBBO for 20 FPOs, resource agency for ~160 NABARD FPOs); estimate 1/3 are A grade, 1/3 B and remainder are C and won’t make it

  • Gautam Sharma (+919978997233) from Reliance Foundation looks at tech for FPOs and SHGs (Reliance Foundation promotes FPOs) including federations like Gujpro. Right now, they rely on multiple whatsapp groups to communicate, open to learning more about a solution with more structured data

  • Shambu Prasad at IRMA is interested in our work. If we want to do recruiting from IRMA, they have internships in the summer, project work during the semester (Sep to Nov) which last for 45 to 60 days and full-time placements for candidates who start after graduation in May, recruiting for those candidates is starting soon

Other notes

  • FPOs should only take on infrastructure capex loans once they are mature; taking on that kind of debt too early can tie up capital and make it impossible to get working capital and manage day to day operations (NABKisan)

  • A few folks expressed nervousness about the govt pushing too heavily on FPOs and setting unreasonable targets on # of FPOs formed and their growth trajectory; building community institutions takes time even in the best circumstances

  • Governance (eg, BOD comprised of multiple members of a single household) is single biggest issue that scares away mainstream financial institutions form lending to FPOs (NABKisan)

  • Bayer is apparently working with 44 FPOs in 17 aspirational districts; their strategy is to go to presently defunct FPOs and get them working again. Sarita Bahl is the contact if we want to learn more

  • Women FPO members need better knowledge of buyer requirements (SERP)

  • FPO meetings need to be help at a block rather than district level to reduce transportation burden on women members (SERP)

  • Reliance Foundation maturity FPO framework has 5 elements:

    • Operational: Can FPO deliver on a buyer order

    • Compliance: Is FPO paying GST, holding their AGM on time

    • Financial: Does the BOD provide oversight to the CA and understand their P&L

    • Marketing: Does FPO respond to inbound sales leads, are they doing outbound sales leads?

    • Management: Is leadership addressing the professional / business and social needs of members

    • Critical for FPOs to be formed to address some customer demand, many times FPOs are formed first and then members try to figure out what business to be in

  • Richa Govil (+919880280570) from Azim Premji University moderated a session on women in FPOs and is open to speaking further about what we are building

  • Of the 6k FPOs promoted by NABARD, average membership = ~440 members