Senior Manager
Rajnish Kumar is a Senior Manager in MSC’s Agriculture domain in India.
Five challenges that prevent greater adoption of derivatives trading by farmer producer companies (FPCs)
The blog highlights the challenges faced by the FPCs in using derivatives markets like futures and options and what steps need to be taken to overcome these challenges.
Nov 24, 2023
Nov 24, 2023
Decoding agriculture market linkages for FPOs: Lessons from the field
India’s farmers have had a long history of struggle. For decades, they have battled a multitude of agricultural challenges, such as fragmented landholding, numerous intermediaries, and low value addition. In response, the country has actively promoted farmer producer organizations (FPOs) as a solution. FPOs intend to address these serious issues through the aggregation of demand for high-quality inputs, credit, and technologies and the aggregation of outputs to improve smallholder farmers’ market access. Yet despite these efforts, major processors and output purchasing companies hesitate to engage directly with FPOs. This blog explains the options available for FPOs to trade with institutional buyers and the on-ground issues FPOs must overcome to establish better market linkages.
Nov 21, 2023
Nov 21, 2023
Crisis, resilience, and adaptation: farming and financial services in times of climate change
Climate change poses great challenges for small farmers. It disrupts their agricultural schedules and leads to lower crop yields and financial instability. The CIFAR Climate Resilient Agriculture (CRAg) working group recognizes these challenges and intends to address their needs through digital technology. It brings together different stakeholders to facilitate knowledge exchange and encourage the development of business models and start-ups that strengthen smallholder farmers’ climate resilience and adaptation.
Aug 8, 2023
Aug 8, 2023
Overcoming challenges in Farmer Producer Company (FPC) scaling and sustainability: Lessons from JEEViKA in Bihar
FPCs are powerful tools to allow smallholder farmers more control over the markets where they trade. This helps to transform agriculture productivity and increase small-scale producers’ incomes. However, cluster-based business organizations should recognize the inherent challenges that FPCs face and learn to address the pitfalls in managing FPCs to realize their potential. This blog outlines these challenges and share insights to address such pitfalls.
May 23, 2023
May 23, 2023
Can Farmer Producer Companies (FPCs) benefit from participating in agriculture derivatives trading?
India’s policymakers view the trading of commodity derivatives skeptically. As a result, they have enacted occasional bans and suspensions. Unfortunately, this apprehension is often misplaced and appears to be driven by concerns of speculative trading and market price manipulation. However, farmer producer companies have increasingly traded commodity derivatives to establish market linkage, achieve better price realization, and hedge commodity price fluctuations.
May 18, 2023
May 18, 2023
eNAM platform to digitize the marketing of agricultural produce in India
India’s eNAM platform enables trading of primary agricultural produce and connects markets through an online platform. MSC has been supporting the central and the provincial governments in the design, policy reforms, and implementation of the eNAM program. Many of the design improvements have been accepted and implemented. The cumulative volume of electronic trade on eNAM had crossed about INR 482 billion (USD 6.5 billion) by September, 2018.
Jun 24, 2019
Puneet Chopra, Vivek Gupta, Sharad Bangari, Rajnish Kumar, Amit Joshi, Kritika Shukla and Disha Bhavnani
Jun 24, 2019
Puneet Chopra, Vivek Gupta, Sharad Bangari, Rajnish Kumar, Amit Joshi, Kritika Shukla and Disha Bhavnani
Developing micro-insurance ecosystem in Mozambique
The insurance industry and the culture of insurance in Mozambique are in an evolving stage. Given the current state of micro-insurance in Mozambique, it is very essential to have a focused approach towards developing an enabling ecosystem in Mozambique.
May 24, 2019
May 24, 2019
A Qualitative Study of Producer Organisations in Select Geographies in India
The report brings out insights on PO forms, organisations, structures, management, governance, operations, business performance, earnings, needs, expectations, maturity levels and several other important aspects regarding farmer collectives.
Jul 23, 2018
Amit Joshi, Kritika Shukla, Puneet Chopra, Pushkar Raj, Rajnish Kumar, Sharad Bangari, Vivek Gupta and Disha Bhavnani
Jul 23, 2018
Amit Joshi, Kritika Shukla, Puneet Chopra, Pushkar Raj, Rajnish Kumar, Sharad Bangari, Vivek Gupta and Disha Bhavnani