Over 7,000 farmer organisations join e-retail platform ONDC – Industry News

More than 7,000 farming communities have joined the government's e-commerce platform, the Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC), and the Ministry of Agriculture has begun training them on packaging, branding, marketing, credit linkages with banks, digital payments and compliance.

Officials said ONDC, which is being promoted as an alternative to global e-commerce platforms such as Amazon, Major companies such as Walmart have begun offering specialized training on various aspects of business development and marketing through workshops and events that the Ministry of Agriculture will organize across the country over the next year.

“We plan to hold two mega events every month in different cities, where several of these farmer cooperatives will participate and training will be conducted with the help of private sector, including banks and packaging giant DCGpac,” the official told FE.Currently, 55 FPOs have taken part in the Farmer Producers Organisations (FPOs) meet being held here and similar events are planned to be held across the country.

Since FPOs began participating on the ONDC platform in April 2023, over 7,638 units out of 8,800 units registered with the government so far have utilised the facility to sell as many as 3,100 types of value-added agricultural produce.

“Since joining ONDC this fiscal, our turnover has crossed Rs 40 crore and we are targeting to increase the turnover to Rs 70 crore in FY25,” said Tapas Kumar Pati, chief operating officer, BASIX Krishi Samruddhi, a group that has assisted 80 FPOs with ONDC in Odisha, West Bengal, Bihar and Uttar Pradesh.

Providing better markets for farmers “The move to incorporate FPOs under ONDC is aimed at enabling them direct access to digital marketing,” an agriculture ministry official said.online payments, business-to-business transactions, business-to-consumer transactions, etc.”

The network has over 30 digital applications including Mystore, PayTM, Magicpin, Delhivery and more.Covering intercity logisticsa platform for buyers and sellers. In April 2022, the government launched ONDC as a Section 8 company established by the Department of Industrial Promotion. and domestic trade.

ONDC is working with the Small Farmers Agricultural Business Council (SFAC), an organisation under the Ministry of Agriculture, to support FPOs, with the aim of supporting small and micro enterprises as they face challenges in accessing national markets, according to officials.

Under the new central sector scheme titled “Establishment and Promotion of 10,000 FPOs”, launched in 2020 with a budget of Rs 6,865 crore, over 8,800 FPOs have been registered against the government’s target of 10,000.

The scheme will provide financial assistance to FPOs up to Rs 1.8 million per FPO for a period of three years, with a provision for matching equity grant of up to Rs 2,000 per farmer-member of an FPO, subject to a maximum limit of Rs 1.5 million per FPO.

The scheme also includes a credit guarantee facility for project loans up to Rs 20 million per FPO.