Coming together of farmers has helped, says award-winning FPO

January 29, 2021 11:59 pm | Updated 11:59 pm IST - COIMBATORE

Velliangiri Uzhavan Farmer Producer Company Ltd. that recently won the ‘Best Performing Farmer Producer Company-Governance’ award said the coming together of farmers had helped its members as well as others. The company received the award from Chief Minister Edappadi K. Palaniswami at the Republic Day function held in Chennai.

The company’s chairman D. Kumar said that in the last eight years it had increased its turnover from ₹ 45,000 to ₹12 crore by sending vegetables, coconut and other produce to different parts of the country and abroad as well. The company had also helped farmers drip irrigate their fields, set up a vegetable sorting and grading centre in Booluvampatti and promote organic farming as well.

S.P. Velumani, one of the directors, said the coming together of farmers had helped them negotiate coconut price with traders, prevail upon them to agree to buy coconut based on weight and also negotiate with farm labourers to fix the cost of de-husking and harvesting coconuts.

In the process, farmers in and around Thondamuthur, who were not the members of the company, had also benefited, added R. Venkat Rasa, coordinator.

Mr. Kumar said the farmers came together to form the company with support from Isha Foundation, which had helped in every stage of the process. After forming the company and gaining experience, the company was helping farmers in other parts of the district come together to float similar farmers’ producer organisations. Another, benefit that the farmers in and around Thondamuthur had gained because of the company was that they were getting trained in organic farming as well, added A. Vel Mylsamy, another director.

The company said it received the ‘Best FPO’ award last year from Union Agriculture Minister Narendra Singh Tomar.

0 / 0
Sign in to unlock member-only benefits!
  • Access 10 free stories every month
  • Save stories to read later
  • Access to comment on every story
  • Sign-up/manage your newsletter subscriptions with a single click
  • Get notified by email for early access to discounts & offers on our products
Sign in

Comments

Comments have to be in English, and in full sentences. They cannot be abusive or personal. Please abide by our community guidelines for posting your comments.

We have migrated to a new commenting platform. If you are already a registered user of The Hindu and logged in, you may continue to engage with our articles. If you do not have an account please register and login to post comments. Users can access their older comments by logging into their accounts on Vuukle.