Constraints in Operationalizing FPOs in Punjab and Strategies to Mitigate Them

Abstract

Background: Majority of the Farmer in Punjab is of small holders and these farmers face a lot of problems in the process of inputs as well as output marketing. In order to provide solutions to the marketing problems of the such small holder farmers the union government came up with the idea of strengthening or initiating the formation of self-help groups, farmer interest groups, farmer cooperatives and clubs etc. for further integrating these entities into the farmer Producer Organisations (FPOs). Methods: For this study data were collected from 150 randomly selected respondents belonging to functional as well as non-functional FPOs. Garrett’s ranking technique was used to identify the most important constraints faced in the process of running FPOs. Result: This study attempted to identify the constraints in the process of operationalizing the FPOs in Punjab and it was found that managerial, socio-psychological, economic and marketing constraints were the major ones. Moreover, lack of trust, cooperation, financial crunch, lack of business management skills, unequal work delegation, ineffective group leadership, delayed payments were the major constraints. Mitigation strategies adopted by the executives of the FPOs were transparency of records, strong association with resource institutes, participatory decision making, efficient conflict management etc. The suggestions of the respondents for making FPOs more vibrant and sustainable were accountability of the resource institutes, capacity buildings of the stakeholders, dissemination of awareness about the functioning of FPOs among the members etc.