The district Vegetable Farmer Producers’ Company, supported by the National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development in association with Dalmia Bharat Foundation, has established an agro processing unit under the Mission on Sustainable Dryland Agriculture (MSDA) of the State government.
Named, Ariyalur Arima, the unit has machineries to produce value added products from farm produce. It procures commodities such as groundnut, sesame and other millets directly from members and farmers for this work. It has a capacity to produce 2500 litres of cold pressed gingelly oil a month and 3,000 kg of flour a day. Value added products such as vegetable oil and flour fetch a better price in the market as they are prepared by traditional methods. The estimated monthly turnover of the company is around ₹75,000 to start with, out of which a net profit for the FPC would be around ₹20,000 a month, according L.S.Naveenkumar, District Development Manager, NABARD, Ariyalur and Perambalur.
The FPC was started with 125 farmers who were primarily members of Farmer Interest Groups (FIGs) from nine villages. It has 300 members now and is expected to have about 1,000 farmers by the end of 2019. It is expected to improve the bargaining power, net income and quality of life of small and marginal farmers.
R.A.Krishnakumar, Executive Director of Dalmia Cements, visited the centre recently, interacted with farmers, appreciated them and said that the unit would be a role model.
Mr. Naveen Kumar said the Board of Directors of the company would be oriented in areas such as business operation and management, market linkages, legal aspects of FPO, regulatory compliance, good governance practices, transparency, accountability and other related issues.
