Millets

Working with an FPO in Coimbatore — what to look at

A farmer producer organisation is a company whose shareholders are the growers themselves, so the trading margin a middleman would take stays inside the village. Four things decide whether a particular collective is worth your time. First, registration: every producer company has a corporate identity number you can look up yourself, and a body that hesitates to give it is telling you something. Second, the plant — a collective with a drying yard, a grader and a cold room can hold a lot until the price is right, while one with only a collection shed must sell the day it buys. Third, the shareholder base: a large number is only meaningful if the accounts were audited on time and the annual meeting actually happened. Fourth, certification scope — an organic or export certificate covers named crops and named seasons, so read the scope, not the logo. On this page the green ticks mark facts we matched against a filed record or a certificate copy, and the grey outlines mark what the collective told us and we have not checked. agri.in never buys, sells or brokers a consignment, holds no money, and charges farmers nothing.