Scaling up of farmer producer organisations (FPOS) for promotion of organic fruits andvegetable farming in Haryana

Farmer Producer Organizations (FPO) consist of collectivization of producers especially small andmarginal farmers so as to form an effective alliance to address challenges of agriculture. The main aim ofFPOs is to help the small farm holders to achieve the economics of scale by strengthening the supportand services in the emerging value chains. Haryana State Co-operative Supply and MarketingFederation Limited (HAFED) also initiated the promotion of organic farming in Haryana, with an initialtarget of 5000 acers. In Haryana about 65.4% of the land holders are small and marginal land holderswho can get benefited from concept of FPO. But despite loads of interventions from the Government andother relevant bodies, till now the predicted success couldn't be achieved, especially among FPOs inHaryana having main objective of organic farming. The current study was conducted to capture thecurrent status of FPOs having organic farming as major objective, to identify the pain points, identifyareas of intervention and formulate solutions to help them achieve their goals. Organic farmingpractices are new to the farmers of Haryana and hence, the knowledge levels are low in most of thepractices. At present the adoption rate is very slow in the state and thus demanding a greater attentionat government and community level. A state wide organic awareness campaign is essential to change the attitude of producers and consumers both, encourage them to go for organic farming.