Farmers’ collectives are partnering with corporates like Olam, Big Basket, and Britannia for direct agri-produce procurement, eliminating intermediaries and boosting farmer incomes. Over 8,500 FPOs are now on ONDC, with government support in licensing, infrastructure, and financing.
Corporate players have started purchasing agriculture produce directly from farmer producer organisations (FPOs), in a move that will help weed out market intermediaries and boost farmers’ income.
Olam International has recently purchased maize from farmers collectives in Hathras district, Uttar Pradesh and Purnia and Khargaria districts of Bihar.
Mother Dairy, Big Basket, Britannia and Country Delight too are seeking procurement partnerships with the farmers’ collectives, according to an agriculture ministry official.
“This initiative is opening up structured, scalable and sustained market avenues for FPOs, helping them realise better value for their produce and building long-term business relationship,” an official said.
The official said that private entities buying directly from the farmers are currently paying the required mandis taxes in the concern states, they encourage states to waive mandi fees for FPOs to make market yards more competitive and facilitate better infrastructure creation.
Under the ministry of agriculture’s initiative to connect corporate buyers with FPOs, through series of weekly webinar, direct discussions has been held with leading buyers of commodities including Olam International, Big Basket, Britannia, Flipkart, Country Delight, NCCF. Mother dairy and agencies including government e market place (GeM), Agricultural Processed Food Products Exports Development Authority (APEDA), farmers’ cooperative Nafed and Selco foundation.
This intervention of buying directly from the FPOs according to officials would be focussed on fresh produce, where issues such as perishability and lack of harvest infrastructure impacts the farmers more than the it does for foodgrains.
Recently, in a first-of-its-kind initiative to expand procurement of grain across states, FPOs have been roped into carrying out wheat procurement in Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh in the ongoing 2025-26 marketing season (April-June).
Olam has so far purchased Rs 2.96 crore worth of maize from the farmers in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar while NCCF has procured Rs 103 crore worth of wheat directly from the farmers.
“Cooperatives like us have been asked to carry out procurement along with Food Corporation of India (FCI) so that FPOs and primary agricultural credit societies (PACS) associated with them get a chance to get into the mainstream procurement,” Anice Joseph Chandra, MD, NCCF had resently said.
Currently over 8500 FPOs have been onboarded on the government’s e-commerce platform – ONDC – currently selling hosts of agri-products such as rice, honey and edible
To boost businesses prospects of farmers’ collectives, FPOs are being granted various input licenses and dealerships such as seed, pesticide and fertilizers, for conducting input business for boosting financial viability of collectives.
FPOs can also avail financial assistance from various schemes including agriculture infrastructure fund and agricultural marketing infrastructure.
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