Institutional Innovations for Inclusive Growth of Smallholders: A Review of Success Cases

This paper has analysed the status of smallholders and institutional interventions made for their integration with the markets for inclusive growth with focus on vertical integration, backward linkages for assured market, aggregation through cooperatives, rural retail, etc. These initiatives have benefited both farmers and service providers. The farmers have been benefited in terms of reduced transaction cost, higher productivity, enhanced income, assured market and price, etc. The success of any model in ensuring inclusion of small farmers, suffering from resource constraints, in the mainstay depends on its ability to address problems faced by small farmers. The institutional interventions already attempted in the country include contract farming, market linkages, promotion of cooperatives like self-help groups, farmers groups, producers companies, rural retail, etc. The study has reported that there are more than 300 producer companies in India now and these include Crop Producers Company Ltd., Chetna Organic Agriculture Produce Co., COFA, PPCL, VAMCOL, VANILCO, BIPCL, Fab India, etc. The suitability of different models for addressing various issues faced by smallholders has been analysed.