Policy Round table on Sustainability of Farmer Producer Organizations in Sikkim

Gangtok, 29 Novermenr: A policy round table on sustainability of FPO was commenced at the Hotel Tashi Delek in Gangtok, Sikkim. The conference was conducted by Development Alternatives in partnership with the Integrated Mountain Initiatives (IMI), Green Economy Coalition. This initiative is supported by Heinrich Boll Foundation and European Union. The initiative engages with policy makers to design better farmer producer organizations for livelihood security and environmental sustainability of agriculture systems. 

Sikkim is declared as the first organic state in the country, therefore moving towards sustainable agriculture. Government of Sikkim has recently launched Sikkim Organic Mission 2.0. As a part of this phase, Sikkim aims to enable better market access, pricing for organic produce to farmers in Sikkim. In the same context, this consultation gathered challenges that small farmers in Sikkim faces and the opportunity in farmer producer organizations to enable better livelihood security and environment sustainability of agriculture. 

The consultation witnessed participation from Department of Agriculture, NABARD, various service providers and farmer producer members from Sikkim. There were key experts and practitioners from other parts of India who also joined to share their experiences with Sikkim stakeholders. 

Honorable Minister of Parliament, Mr PD Rai addressed the participants to give insight on vision and aspirations of the Government of Sikkim in this context. In his opening address, Mr Rai highlighted the context of the Himalayan states as critical in determining any design of FPOs for Sikkim. The Government of Sikkim has taken various initiatives to support small holder farmers and FPOs in Sikkim. Mr PD Rai emphasized the need to critically assess and understand challenges faced by FPOs and device ways to address them, where the experience of participants at the round table must explore. Sikkim Government is leaders in taking forth initiative for achieving Sustainable Development Goals in the state; and food and agriculture systems will play an instrumental role in its success. 

Dr Anbalagan Sundaram, Executive Director, Sikkim Organic Mission, elaborated on various initiatives that government of Sikkim has taken and plans to take up for supporting organic agriculture and better incomes for the small farmers in Sikkim. The recent announcement of Vegetable ban from outside Sikkim, in order to promote local agriculture production is seen as a challenge as well as a big opportunity for Sikkim farmers to access local markets with their produce. 

FPOs and promoting agencies shared major challenges faced by farmers and FPOs in Sikkim. Tshering Ongmu, Secretary, FPO East Sikkim elaborated on inaccessibility of organic inputs and lack of awareness amongst farmers on organic practices. 

FPOs find it challenging to identify the ‘right’ price for their produce and generally loose out to competitive prices from produce of other states. Karma Dechen Bhutia, President FPO East, shared the incapacities of the technical know-how especially for management and marketing in the FPOs of Sikkim. Mr Rajesh Gupta from EDA Rural Service Private Limited, raised the concern of unfriendly nature of financial institutions to the FPOs. Most of the banks in Sikkim are not aware of FPOs and are therefore reluctant to finance them. This is a major hindrance in growth of FPOs in Sikkim.  

There were insights on possible innovations at ground and policy level that can support in enabling better functioning of FPOs in Sikkim. Prof Shambhu Prasad, IRMA suggested to build a cadre of professionals within Sikkim that have technical capacities for management and marketing decisions for the FPO. Ashish Gupta, a farmer and leading Bhoomika Campaign across the country, suggested FPOs in Sikkim to connect to network of organic FPOs to reach out wider markets in the country. He also emphasized the need for transparency in costs incurred by the FPOs in marketing to its farmer members for building faith amongst the members towards the institution. Regarding organic certification, it was suggested to explore Participatory Guarantee System (PGS) as the certification approach. This system certifies the farmer and not the land; therefore filling various lacunas of the conventional organic certification. 

Major emphasis was also made on producing data on organic agriculture production and productivity to attract scientific research temperament and evidence generation from the state. Ms Vijaylakshmi Das emphasized the need of behavior change of banks towards FPOs which is not very easy, as she elaborates from her experience. It was suggested if the Government of Sikkim can build a credit guarantee fund or a revolving fund to enhance investments towards FPOs and also provide directives to the banks to prioritise easy FPO lending. Mr MV Ashok, former CGM, NABARD, Mumbai identified a critical need to transform KVKs and extension system to the needs of organic agriculture production. Mr Rangu Rao, Safe Harvest Private Limited shared formal designed processes as instrumental for setting up FPOs at scale. 

The policy round table was successful in knowledge sharing amongst network of FPOs from across the country and potentials for Sikkim to build FPOs in the state with strong institutional ownership and business performance. It is believed that such initiatives will build finance and marketing networks amongst FPOs of Sikkim and boost the income of the small farmers in the State of Sikkim and promote sustainable agriculture.