Farmers producer companies of Manipur as coronavirus warriors

KJ Satyasai & Kirankumar Singh Thokchom
Coronavirus pandemic forced the mankind to test its preparedness and resilience in the face of such events and relook into the fundamentals of its existence on this beautiful planet. When most of are in lockdown not to catch the infection, there are many warriors who are out there to protect and serve us. Health workers, police, sanitation workers, essential service providers and bankers are in the forefront. There are, of course, many more unsung heroes such as farmers and Farmer Producers Organizations (FPOs) who are trying to keep the supply lines for food and essentials running. Government of India rightly exempted farmers and farm labourers from lockdown.
The lockdown in Manipur started earlier as the state government closed the Ima Keithel, Asia’s largest all women’s market, as well as and all women markets across the state from 21 to 25 March 2020. Due to this the Sajibu Cheiraoba festival lost its fervour this year.
The lockdown can be more serious for Manipur since it is a net importer of many essential commodities including fruits and vegetables and its supply chains of such commodities can choke faster as boarders are sealed and transport is banned. Even for the available supplies reaching them to consumers is a challenge as the system of home delivery is very nascent and limited to small pockets.
As of now, And, the officials have twin challenge of ensuring effective lockdown and ensuring supply of essentials to public. On the other hand, many farmers are resorting to distress selling of farm produce.
In such situations, farmers organisations have great role to play though Manipur has very few of them. Farmers Producer Organisations/Companies are formed by a group of farmers who come together and register as a society or company to reap the benefits of aggregation and gain scale and scope economies. Three Farmers Producers Companies (FPCs) viz. Yumbi Agro Farmer Producers Company Ltd, Mangjil Agro Farmer Producers Company Ltd and Fidam Farmer Producers Company Ltd, Iramdam United Food Producer Company Limited, Kakching, promoted by NABARD, Manipur came forward and obtained approval from state government to home deliver. NABARD has extended grant support to some NGOs and FPCs to open rural marts and rural haats where the products of farmers and artisans can be sold.
In Manipur, NABARD is supporting 7 rural marts and 9 rural haats which can be networked to serve as sale points for all FPCs and SHG/artisan products from across the state. Government may exempt all these rural outlets from lockdown to enable direct marketing by producers. For Yumbi Agro Farmer Producers Company Ltd and Mangjil Agro Farmer Producers Company Ltd, it was the first business after they got registered as FPC in February 2020. Although, both the companies have not made any profit as on date, but it is certainly an experience for the newcomers and an opportunity to serve the people while protecting the interest of producers. The challenges faced by the FPCs are ensuring quality, ensuring timely delivery, keeping the price affordable, managing logistics and keeping the delivery costs low, and more importantly fight the mindset of consumers who are new to home delivery concept. Since the FPCs have ventured into a new business model for the first time and that too unprepared, they may incur losses especially so since they do not resort to rent seeking to exploit the situation. Hence, it is imperative on the state and other stakeholders to compensate the FPCs. If such compensation is promised more FPCs may come forward to benefit farmers and consumers. It appears that the FPCs tend to think of withdrawing from home delivery as government is not giving any support. However, FPCs are more of business organisations and the present crisis is an opportunity for them to develop niche market for their members’ products. Hence, we argue that FPCs should think of ways towards viability the new business model than retracting for want of government support.
While in the short run, we may rope in the existing FPCs (there are less than 20 now in the state) and the network of direct sale points of producers, we should saturate the state with as many FPCs as feasible.
Further, the FPCs should help farmers adopt new product lines and help build localised value chains for essentials.
When Manipur has fertile land, ample water resources, and conducive agro-climatic conditions that support diverse cropping pattern, developing localised value chains is possible and building viable farmers organisations and leveraging network of direct sale points is an effective strategy to attain preparedness to fight crises in future.
(KJ Satyasai and Kirankumar Singh Thokchom are Officers-in-Charge and District Development Manager, NABARD, Manipur, respectively. View expressed are those of the authors only)