Agriculture minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan on Thursday called for increasing annual sales turnover of at least 5,000 farmers producer organisations (FPOs) to above Rs one crore each by FY26 for achieving economy of sale and financial sustainability.
“Sales turnover of at least 50% of 10,000 farmers’ collectives should cross Rs 1 crore each by end of FY26, while in the next fiscal we can target all the collectives to clock Rs 1 crore sales,” Chouhan said after inaugurating national FPO conclave 2025 here.
Chouhan also called on collectives to enroll over 20 million farmers as shareholders from the current level of 5 million by the end of FY26.
Of over 10,000 farmer producer organisations (FPO) set up under a special incentive scheme launched in FY21, 340 FPOs have crossed Rs 10 crore sale turnover, while over 1100 farmers collectives have reported sales exceeding Rs 1 crore in FY25.
Cumulative turnover of these farmers’ collectives have crossed Rs 16,700 crore, according to the agriculture ministry data.
Chouhan also suggested that each of the FPOs should hold a license for selling and distributing seeds, fertilisers and pesticides so that profits earned by collectives and farmers get these inputs at a reasonable prices from the companies.
“In each district, a major farmers owned organisation should emerge in the line to AMUL model,” he said.
To boost business prospects, FPOs are being granted various input licences and dealerships in seed (6046), pesticide (4246) and fertilisers (5709). This enables them to run input businesses too and improve financial viability.
A senior official said the financial assistance and marketing support to these collectives, where over 5 million farmers have equities, would continue till FY27. Most of the FPOs under the scheme have been formed in the last couple of years.
The high-growth FPOs have boosted their profiles making good use of government platforms like Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC), electronic national agriculture market (e-NAM), and the government e-marketplace (GeM).
Several farmers’ collectives formed in the last five years through the central sector scheme have also carried out procurement of oilseeds, pulses and grain under minimum support price (MSP) to boost their businesses.
Over 9,450 FPOs are currently on board the government’s e-commerce platform ONDC. Over 216 collectives are selling their products on platforms such as GeM while sales of agri-produce have also commenced in a significant way via Amazon and Flipkart.
FPOs are registered under several provisions such as the Companies Act 2013, Cooperatives Societies Act of respective states or under the Multi-State Cooperative Society Act. These entities also avail financial assistance from various schemes including the agriculture infrastructure fund and agricultural marketing infrastructure.
The scheme for formation of 10,000 new FPOS was aimed at enhancing collective bargaining power of farmers through local aggregation and reducing cost of production through leveraging economies of scale, financial assistance up to Rs 18 lakh per FPO for a period of three years.