Cooperative farming in India is the pooling of land and resources for joint cultivation by volunteer assembly of people to meet their common socio-economic and cultural needs. By pooling the resources of small and marginal farmers, the Cooperative farming will get the benefit of large scale farming by reducing the burden of cost of production.

As per the Agricultural Export Policy 2018, Cooperative sector has a big role to play in doubling agriculture exports from present US $ 30 billion to US$ 60 billion plus by 2022. This will be a boost for Doubling the Farmers Income and achieving the goals set under the Agriculture Exports Policy 2018.

Cooperative farming refers to an organisation in which each member-farmer remains the owner of his land individually. But farming is done jointly. Profit is distributed among the member-farmers in the ratio of land owned by them. And wages are distributed among the member-farmers according to number of days they worked.

Small and marginal farmers constitutes more than 80% of total farmers in India. Usage of machinery, modern technology is practically not possible for them to get anticipated outcomes on yield. Similarly, majority of small and marginal farmers get their loans from informal sources, i.e. money lenders, traders and gets in the trap of heavy debt and even committed suicide.

Cooperative farming helps in root out these issues and improve their livelihood. Cooperatives helps skilling the rural population and create employment opportunities. It also provides marketing assistance to the farmers to enable them fetch best possible price for their produce.

 

Empowering through Cooperatives

Cooperative farming will be the the future agrarian pattern of India. Farmers will continue to retain their property rights but their land will be pooled for joint cultivation.

– Nagpur resolution of Congress, 1959

Agricultural cooperatives can play a vital role in educating the farmers to reduce the cost of cultivation through balanced use of fertilizer, improve water-use efficiency, establish more warehouse to avoid distress sale of produce, link with National E-market (e-NAM), emphasize value addition and encourage farmers to take up other allied activities like poultry, beekeeping, fisheries.

Achieving Economic Sustainability 

Cooperative farming helps farmer (especially small and marginal farmers) to understand and adopts new technologies in farming. Cooperative farming also helps large scale farmers, by sharing their land with landless labourers, which will benefits both landless labourers got the working days and landlord got mobilising his surplus resources.

For example, Urlong Tea Integrated Village Cooperative Society Ltd is a commercial initiative, with a focus on the  economic sustainability of tea growing in the area. The tea farmers own and run their individual gardens with an  implied agreement of interdependence that they would  sell the leaves plucked from these gardens to the  society’s owned processing plant. This tea processing unit is currently the only asset that operates for the collective benefit of all the farmers in the area.

Branding of Cooperatives

In order to promote co-operative farming among farmers, Farmer Producer Organization; various facilities and incentives in the form of providing loans, technical assistance, subsidies and also to supply high yielding seeds, fertilisers and other inputs were advanced by the Government. However, branding of Cooperative units have created huge profits as like AMUL.

Success story of a cooperative institution (AMUL) which has touched the level of excellence as top corporate players. Cooperative has farmers as members and they used to sell their milk collectively under cooperative framework to maximize profits and increase bargaining power.

In AMUL’s case Marketing strategy and Branding have been the mantras of success as AMUL Brand is one of the super brands of Indian market and it has established its contract with customers showcasing its higher quality standards, justified and correct pricing strategy & product availability in every part of India.

Institutions facilitating Cooperative Farming

 1. National Co-Operative Development Corporation (NCDC):

Established by an Act of Parliament in 1963 as a statutory corporation under the Ministry of Agriculture for planning, promoting and financing programmes for production, processing, marketing, storage, export and Import of agricultural produce and minor forest produce.

It also finance projects in the rural industrial co-operative sectors and for certain notified services in rural areas like water conservation, Irrigation, and micro irrigation, agri-insurance, agro-credit, rural-sanitation, animal health etc.

2. Indian Farmers Fertiliser Co-operative Limited (IFFCO):

It is created through farmers of their own Co-operative Societies, to safeguard their interests in the production and distribution of fertilisers. Registered in 1967, IFFCO is a Multi-unit Co-operative Society & has made strategic investments in several joint ventures across India & the world.

 3. The National Agricultural Cooperative Marketing Federation of India Ltd (NAFED):

It undertakes the purchase, sale and supply of agricultural products, implements and machinery, packing machinery, processing and marketing. It facilitates rural godown cold storage, marketing information to farmers.

According to Jawaharlal Nehru, “As civilization advances and society becomes more and more complex, the element of cooperation is lacking, then all the training that we have is useless because it is frittered away in some measures of conflict.” Similarly, Lack of awareness about cooperatives, inefficient technology upgradation, poor quality of production (by pooling the yield together for marketing), lack of better Management practices, competition from Private players, etc. has caused obstacles in Cooperative farming.

Despite that various schemes of the government like Jan Dhan Yojana, Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana, Pradhan Mantri Krishi Sinchai Yojana, Mudra Scheme provide a good opportunity for cooperatives to collaborate with the government and reap multiple benefits. Present Government vision of Doubling farmers income by 2022 could be achieved by effective cooperation of farmers to pool their scare resources and benefit from economies of scale.

Compilation by Yugendiran, Horticulture graduate and content creator of Agademy.in . Reach him at [email protected]