To help expand the global footprint of the farmers producer organisations (FPOs), the small farmers agribusiness consortium (SFAC), a body under agriculture ministry. has tied up with Dun & Bradstreet (D&B) India, a global major in data and analytics.
Under the arrangement, a unique nine-digit data universal numbering system (D-U-N-S) number, a standard for tracking companies and their activities worldwide, has been provided so far to 1392 FPOs who are onboard the government’s pan-India e-commerce platform – Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC).
DUNS numbers provide information about the organisations, structure and their financials performance. “While DUNS numbers are currently being provided free to all the FPOs, the company would offer more value-added products and services at a discounted fee to farmers’ owned bodies,” Sanjeev Gautam, Director, SFAC, told FE.
Since the FPOs joined the ONDC platform in April, 2023, 2500 such farmers’ bodies have sold as many as 3,100 varieties of value-added agricultural products in 28 states.
An agriculture minisry official said that the target is to bring 10,000 FPOs into pan India digital market place by March, 2024. The platform is being promoted by the government as an alternative to global e-commerce majors such as Amazon and Walmart for supporting small enterprises.
Gautam of SFAC said becoming a part of D&B’s database will help FPOs to expand into international markets as most of the buyers refer to this database while looking for suppliers. “Global buyers can source several unique agricultural products from FPOS using DUNS data and support these farmers’ collective in establishing their business credibility and access global markets,” he said.
SFAC is currently discussing with D&B to provide its next generation business analytics services ‘Hoover’ for boosting sales of products by farmers’ owned organisations. At present, 0.25 million global and domestic customers leverage the D&B data cloud for making business decisions.
According to an agriculture ministry official, two FPOs which had put catalogs online through ONDC a few months back have already serviced 1500 orders each while six collectives have received more than 1000 online orders.
The official said that the range of raw and processed food items being sold by FPOs covers a wide spectrum – more than 100 varieties of rice, several types of floral honey, pollen etc thus connecting farmers to consumers through the platform
ONDC supports and trains FPOs, free registration, in developing and digitisation of product catalogues, generating shipping labels, identifying delivery partners and facilitating digital payments so that they leverage the platform for marketing of their product.
The network has more than 30 odd digital applications including Mystore, PayTM, Maginpin and Delhivery in the spheres of intercity logistics provider, platform for buyers and sellers and others.
In April 2022, the government had launched ONDC, as a section 8 company established by the department for promotion of industry and internal trade.
For FPOs, the digital network provides direct access to digital marketing, online payment, business-to-business (B2B) and business-to-consumer transactions, and encourages local value addition, catalyzing growth of logistics in rural areas.
Farmers said that the government now must provide support to FPOs to sell their products on the Government e-Marketplace portal, used for public procurement by central and state government agencies.