Review Meeting- Pesticide Free Dang District Scheme and FPO Scheme
Under the Chairmanship of *Shri DH Shah (IAS) sir, MD, Gujarat Agro
Industries Corporation Limited* and co-chairmanship of *Shri Damor
(IAS) sir, DDO, Dang District*, a review meeting was held for the
Pesticide Free Dang District Scheme as well as FPO Scheme. *Shri MK
Qureshi sir, Director, Gujarat Organic Product Certification Agency
(GOPCA)* was also in special presence.
The expert team discussed which
At the Dang district, there are two important welfare schemes for
organic farmers are being implemented by Gujarat Agro Industries
Corporation under the Department of Agriculture. The first one is the
organic certification of the farmers practicing organic farming. This
includes creating cluster certification (ICS) of the farmers
practicing organic farming as per the NPOP standards that includes
various trainings to the farmers and capacity building for the land
preparation for organic farming, maintenance, harvesting and storage.
Thereafter, FPO (Farmer Producer Company), the farmers' own company,
is formed where only farmers can join to form their own
organization/company and the basic needs of the farmers such as the
seeds, organic fertilizers, Jivamrut, solid manure and other natural
resources are created. Further, they are advised on the process such
as sorting, grading of the seeds for the value addition and marketing.
It is pertinent to mention that this certification scheme (ICS)
involves training the farmers, with complete traceability, to obtain
large quantities of uniform quality seeds and market them, while the
other scheme (FPO) deals with value addition and trading/marketing of
the same. Farmers are trained in this regard and continuously enriched
with various technical, financial, mechanical facilities for three and
five years. It has been quite some time since these two schemes were
completed, a performance review meeting was organized. Currently, *5
FPOs and 61 farmer clusters have been formed with more than 13000
farmers* are covered and it has been observed that the work is going
on as per the scheme.
Shri Damor (IAS) sir, DDO, Dang District suggested to organize more
trainings, seminars at various levels in close connections with the
administration so that the scheme benefits can reach maximum numbers
of farmers in the foreseeable future. *Shri DH Shah (IAS) sir, MD,
Gujarat Agro Industries Corporation Limited* suggested not to limit to
the mentioned activities of the plans but to execute additional ones
beyond that. He further instructed to educate farmers about various
schemes of central and state government such as PMFME scheme and
Horticulture department's planting on farm boundaries scheme, through
FPO and farmer’s groups. The CBBOs, hand holding agencies, FPOs
present in the review meeting are already following this and further
strongly agreed to continue the same in the future. They advocated to
plan the work accordingly and agreed to work through joint efforts for
the upliftment of farmers.
After concluding the meeting, *Shri DH Shah sir and Shri MK Qureshi
sir went for a surprise visit* to the offices and farms was done by
two teams in which the office of CBBO and hand holding agency True
Life Enterprise was visited by them. They verified documents of the
work done regarding group certification of farmers and sought detailed
information. An inspection was held at the farms to verify whether the
documents are according to the farming sights and farmers.
*Importantly, it was found that the farmers are aware of the scheme
and are benefiting from the scheme information. Further, it was noted
that the activities are being conducted as per the rules of NPOP.*
Special instructions were also given to the organizations and
affiliated departments by the Chairman Shri.
In this meeting, *Mr. Ashwin Bhai Patel, Officer on Special Duty,
GAICL, Mr. Rikesh Bhai Bhatt, Deputy Director, Atma Department,
Gujarat, Mr. Ravi Bhai Prajapati, Quality Inspector and Dr. Wasim
Shaikh, Evaluator, GOPCA, Mr. Sanjay Bhagaria, Atma Project Director
Dang, Mr. Harshad Bhai Patel, Assistant Director of Agriculture Dang,
Mr. Madhavbhai Joshi, Dy.mandator and Nodal Officer, Hand Holding
Agency and CBBO True Life Enterprises, Representatives of CBBO Neer
Horticulture and Abhyudaya Limited, Representatives from FPO of
Waghai, Subir, and Ahwa Taluka Organic Farm Product Producer Company
Limited, Dynamic Dang FPCL and other stakeholders*
remained present.
*It is evident based on the meticulous planning and review that due to
combined efforts of farmers, CBBO and hand holding agency as well as
government, the prevalence of organic farming is skyrocketing and
importantly the farmers are benefiting from organic farming,
especially small and marginal farmers of the district are benefiting
through the schemes*. Overall, farmers are becoming self-reliant and
taking leap towards self-sustainable development through organic
farming.
