Promotion of Agriculture Production Clusters (APCs) in Tribal Regions of Odisha

PRADAN has entered into a partnership with the Government of Odisha and Bharat Rural Livelihoods Foundation (BRLF) for a special programme to benefit around one lakh farmers from 40 tribal dominated blocks in 12 districts by facilitating them to practice market-linked production of crops, mainly horticulture crops. This is a project of Department of Agriculture and Farmers’ Empowerment in collaboration with Panchayati Raj & Drinking Water Department, Govt. of Odisha titled as ‘Promotion of Agriculture Production Clusters (APCs) in Tribal Regions of Odisha’. This will trigger growth in the farm sector with an objective to double the income of one lakh small and marginal farmers, especially women farmers, by establishing agriculture production clusters.

Around Rs. 401 crore will be spent under the scheme in three years. Around 150 Farmers will be organized into one Producer Group (PG) who would be facilitated to practice synchronized market linked production of identified horticultural crops covering around 40 acres in a contiguous manner. Similar such 20-25 PGs having 3000 to 5000 farmers will be aggregated to form the Agriculture Production Cluster/ Producers Company (PC) at an appropriate level.

Total 30 such Producers companies (PC) will be promoted in 40 Blocks involving around 650 Producer groups covering 1,00,000 farmers. To augment the livelihoods of the farmers, livestock (Goat, Sheep and Back Yard Poultry) rearing is also planned with around 40,000 families in these clusters.

Around 750 market-linked agri-entrepreneurs will be groomed to ensure value addition to farm production. Livelihood assets like irrigation in 16,000 acres, orchard development in 8,000 acres, farm mechanisation access to around 7,000 farmers and shed for goat and backyard poultry for 30,000 farmers will also be created in convergence with the existing schemes.

There are 17 partner NGOs including PRADAN who will implement this project in these blocks in collaboration with the departments.