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.

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.

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.

In Bihar’s Buxar district, farmers struggle to cope with the changing climatic conditions and adapt to them. Significant annual variation in rainfall and temperature erodes farmers’ adaptive capacities. Farmer producers organizations (FPOs) could play a central role to promote and facilitate farmers’ adaptation to climate change—but they need improved incentives and support.

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.

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.

COVID-19 is likely to have a widespread, deep, and prolonged impact on every sector and segment. In this blog, we discuss some innovations and practical solutions for governments and other stakeholders to consider to aid food security and to protect the livelihoods of smallholders

In 2017, the Government of Indonesia (GoI) began digitizing social benefit transfers to improve delivery efficiency and achieve sustainable financial inclusion. Program Keluarga Harapan (PKH), a conditional cash transfer (CCT) program, was the first major social assistance payment program (G2P) digitized by the government. It provides incentives for the following: Pregnant and lactating mothers, infants, […]