Agriculture Minister Narendra Singh Tomar on Thursday launched five Farmer Producer Organisations (FPOs) for producing honey which will be set up with the help of NAFED in East Champaran (Bihar), Morena (Madhya Pradesh), Bharatpur (Rajasthan), Mathura (Uttar Pradesh) and Sunderbans (West Bengal), an official statement said.

These FPOs will be one of the first sets of 2,200 FPOs approved by the government for the current financial year. The task of creating these FPOs has been entrusted mainly to Nabard (600 FPOs), Small Farmers’ Agribusiness Consortium (500), National Cooperative Development Corporation (500) and NAFED which will support 50 commodity specific FPOs.

The government has also roped in many State level organisations too for setting up FPOs. Among them are Watershed Development Department of Karnataka (100 FPOs), SFAC-Haryana (50), SFAC- Tamil Nadu (50), North Eastern Regional Agricultural Marketing Corporation (50)), 100 FPOs and National Rural Livelihood Mission of Ministry of Rural Development (100). Besides, Agriculture Ministry directly spearhead constitution of 100 organic farming and 100 oilseeds FPOs, the statement said.

Inaugurating the programme, the Minister said “Bee-keeping in India is highly predominant in the unorganised sector among the rural and tribal population. Despite having a huge potential of honey production in the country, the bee-keeping industry is still underdeveloped. The adoption level of bee-keeping is also quite less due to various constraints”. Tomar hoped that NAFED, which would act as an intermediary, will be able to fill the gaps between the elements of the bee-keeping supply chain and also ensure remunerative prices for bee-keeping farmers.

According to NAFED, 4,000 to 5,000 bee-keepers and honey collectors would benefit directly through these five FPOs. NAFED would help them in branding and collective marketing of the honey as well as explore overseas markets for them.

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