In the budget for 2013-14, the Finance Minister has proposed a matching equity grants to registered Farmer Producer Organisations (FPOs) upto a maximum of Rs. 10 lakh per FPO to enable them to leverage working capital from financial institutions. For this purpose, an outlay of Rs. 50 crore has been kept. Besides, a Credit Guarantee Fund will also be created in the Small Farmers™ Agri Business Corporation with an initial corpus of Rs. 100 crore. The State Governments need to bring necessary amendments to the APMC Act to support such FPOs.
Farmer Producer Organisations including Farmer Producer Companies (FPC) have emerged as aggregators of farm produce and link farmers directly to markets, Shri Chidambaram added.
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