In its ongoing pursuit to develop Uttar Pradesh into the food basket of India and ensure that the benefits of all government schemes reached the farmers of the state, the Yogi-Adityanath-led government has decided to form a farmer producer cell.
The officials here on Tuesday said the cell will serve as an agency to accelerate online registration of active FPOs in the state as well as connecting them with online marketing platforms and facilitating licensing, and equity grants for them. The government will run a three-month long campaign on mission mode in this regard to expedite the process.
The state government has directed the Agriculture Department to strengthen active Farmer Producer Organizations (FPOs) and expedite the process of connecting them with ONDC and e-NAM through the proposed Farmer Producer Cell.
Notably, 3,240 FPOs in the state are operating under the Atma Nirbhar Krishak Samanvit Vikas Yojana and are registered on the Shakti Portal.
In line with CM Yogi’s intentions, a detailed action plan has been prepared to strengthen FPOs in the state. The framework established for this includes promotion, creating a transparent agricultural market, input licensing processes (fertilizers, seeds, pesticides), mandi licenses, GST licenses, FSSAI licenses, and onboarding onto the ONDC platform for market linkage. This process will be completed by integrating it with the ONDC and e-NAM portals.
Additionally, it will assist in completing various important processes such as equity grants, input licenses, seed licenses, seed dealership licenses, and fertilizer licenses.
To encourage FPOs, the Farmer Producer Cell will organize meetings at various levels with the government and prepare a detailed progress report outlining the entire campaign.
This report will be monitored at different levels, ensuring transparency and clarity on the actual progress of the work. The State Level Consultative Committee (SLCC) and District Level Monitoring Committee (DMC) will supervise the activities related to the campaign.