Bhubaneswar: In a bid to enhance farmers’ income and keep the middleman in procurement of farm produce at bay, Chief Secretary SC Mahapatra has asked the department officials concerned to create marketing facilities for cash crops.
Mahapatra gave this direction at a high-level review meeting held here Monday on the activities
of National Agricultural Cooperative Marketing Federation (NAFED) in Odisha and possibilities of further collaboration with the federation.
Considering the possibilities for joint marketing of cash crops, he directed the departments of Agriculture, Horticulture and SC&ST Development to identify cash crops that can be promoted for augmenting famers’ income.
The meeting revealed that some varieties of fruits, vegetables, pulses, oilseeds, millets could be produced and marketed on large scale in collaboration with NAFED.
Mango, jackfruit, pineapple, watermelon, pumpkin, elephant foot yam, ginger, arher, millets, peanuts, sunflower, green gram, black gram, Bengal gram, sweet corn, bajra, maize, toor k-18, scented rice (baasmati), mustard, chilly, brinjal, turmeric, coriander, potato, onion and other crops could be marketed in collaboration with NAFED.
Managing Director of NAFED Sanjeev Chadha mentioned that the federation would provide support and assistance to farmers for cultivation, procurement, branding and marketing of the cash crops in collaboration with the state agencies.
Further, the Chief Secretary advised the officials to promote minor millets as super food throughout the country. Odisha produces many organic millets, fruits and vegetables.
The tribal population in 119 tribal sub-plan (TSP) blocks and 22 Integrated Tribal Development Agencies (ITDAs) are mostly accustomed with production of organic varieties which could be marketed under a special brand. Organic cultivation clusters have also been created in the districts like Koraput, Rayagada and Kandhamal.
He has directed the Agriculture & Farmers’ Empowerment and Cooperation departments to work out a joint marketing framework (JMF) with NAFED.
The JMF would have Farmer Producer Organisations (FPOs), self-help groups (SHGs), Primary Agricultural Cooperative Societies (PACS) and ITDAs as the active partners in up-scaling the cultivation of cash crops and procurement of the produces directly from the farmers, he said. Such strategies, he added, would prevent the possibilities of distress sale and unnecessary intervention of unscrupulous middlemen.