Help small farmers earn livelihood through value added activities

Kalburgi is known for its high quality and voluminous production of pulses. Small and Marginal Farmers are barely able to make their ends meet from sales of their raw produce. They are also adversely affected by low productivity (30-40% of potential levels), high variability in production and quality, with low scale operations (smallholding, rain-fed, climatic variability). Farmers currently sell their produce in raw form. That produce is passed through a network of intermediaries that includes several layers of traders, processing mills, and wholesalers/retailers. Farmers are systematically exploited in this process due to asymmetries in information and inefficiencies in this chain. Ultimately, the farmer receives less than 1/3 of the retail price for processed dals

To address the needs of the Farmers and provide various services to them, Kagina Farmers Producer Organization was setup with a seed grant from Small Farmers Agri Business Consortium- with the help of a jointly approved scheme called Building and sustaining farmer’s producer Organisation for Pulses, Karnataka under RKVY initiative grant to promote small farmer’s producer organizations

VRUTTI has helped identify the machinery which will be used to process multiple pulses. To set up such a unit, costs upwards of 10 lakhs rupees is required excluding the land which will be provided for by the community. Once operational, the venture would purchase raw produce directly from the farmers at a rate Rs. 2-3 per kg more than what they are receiving in the market. After processing, the entity would sell the processed dal to wholesalers or directly to large retailers. The community will be providing the land required for the proposed unit while Vrutti will provide the necessary training and handholding support.

The impact will be manifold. The beneficiaries will comprise of members associated with supply of raw materials to processing mills. Around 100 farmer members will be benefited by marketing of pulses seeds with better prices for pulses mill located at local place. This will cut their transportation cost too. It will provide a boost to employment, 15 more entrepreneurs will be created at local village level from pulses processing. By eliminating the concept of innumerable intermediaries, they will earn extra income of Rs 750 to 1000 per month in form of wages. The consumers will also be a winner as they will get these pulses locally at reasonable rates.