Indian govt deliberates on scope of PPP model in agriculture
NEW DELHI– The Department of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare, Government of India in association with Federation of Indian [ PPP ] in Agriculture’ in New Delhi on Tuesday, according to news agencies.
Manoj Ahuja, Secretary, Department of Agriculture & Farmers Welfare, Government of India delivered the Keynote address on Government’s expectations from Industry, focusing on incorporation of the private sector expectation in the formulation of architectural framework for sector development, shared understanding, knowledge and resources for overall development.
Pravesh Sharma, Chairman, FICCI Task Force on Farmers Producer Organisations [ FPOs], in his address referred to the need for developing synergy between government and private players for a focused approach for investments towards technology, capital and market linkage.
In her address Smt N. Vijayalakshmi, JS [Marketing] laid emphasis on strengthening the four I’s namely Inputs, Infrastructure, Investments and Institutions for developing a conducive ecosystem for PPP projects in Agriculture.
Samuel Praveen Kumar, Joint Secretary [Extension, AIF and I&PS], Dept. of Agriculture & Farmers Welfare mentioned about de-risking of agriculture and stressed the need for developing scalable, viable and replicable business models while leveraging the strengths of public and private sectors to have a “win-win” situation through PPP.
Several Industry experts highlighted the various gaps such as ‘Knowledge gaps to farmers, lack of basic infrastructure, quality of Inputs, among others as the major areas of concern. Some of them also highlighted the issue of Ministries/Departments and stakeholders working in silos.
The session on State’s perspective on PPP in Agriculture was chaired by Shri Samuel Praveen Kumar and moderated by Shri Hemendra Mathur, Chairman, FICCI Task Force on Start-ups.
States pointed out issues like need for Farm gate Infrastructure for Grading, Sorting and primary processing of produce to reduce post-harvest losses, logistic services to work in sync with the producers, Infrastructure to meet export requirements, open network to collect data directly for the farmers & Knowledge distribution.
The consultation was attended by more than 100 participants comprising diverse stakeholders including state government representatives, Agritech start-ups, Private sector players, FPO members, Agri industry experts and Investors.
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