Role of public entrepreneurship in the progress of agricultural produces in Himalayas

Abstract

Villagers living in the Western Himalayan region of Uttarakhand are primarily dependent upon subsistence farming. They follow the practice of growing crops and raising livestock sufficient only for one's own use, without any surplus for trade. With the growing financial needs of the villagers, some portion of their produces is now readily available for marketing. While doing so a farmer gets easily entrapped into the web of the middleman, who provides him anticipatory loans in lieu of the agricultural produces grown by him and a promise to handover those produces at a much lower prices. Under this process farmers are totally debarred from getting a real fair price for their agricultural produces which otherwise they could have fetched in the absence of a middleman. This paper showcases a real experiment done by one of the authors of this paper in which a Farmer’s Producer Organization was established with hundreds of local farmers. Farmer’s Producer Organization is ensuring true monetary value for their agricultural produces by eliminating middleman and ensuring value addition to their produces. This paper critically analyses a case of formation of a Farmer’s Producer Organization in Mukteshwar area of District Nainital, Uttarakhand. Paper also throws light over its working and the challenges being faced by new generation Farmers. Key Words: Traditional farming, Framer’s Producer Organization, Middleman, Livelihood security.