State Bank of India has entered into an MoU with Nanaji Deshmukh Krushi Sanjivani Prakalp, a World Bank-aided project on climate resilience, and Small Farmer Agri Business Consortium (SFAC) for financing the Farmer Producer Companies (FPCs) in Maharashtra. Under this tie-up, the Maharashtra government will provide 50% subsidy on project cost with maximum capping of Rs 50 lakh. The bank said the aim of the tie-up is to promote and strengthen the smallholder farming systems and make easy access to organized finance facility at competitive interest rates to the FPCs. Simultaneously, the bank gave sanction letters to FPCs. FPCs organize farmers into collective units to improve their bargaining strength in the market. These companies are also engaged in agri and allied actives such as dairy/poultry/fishing/bee keeping/sericulture activities, seed production, agri produce aggregation and primary processing centers and all other agri related activities. P.K Gupta, MD (Retail & Digital Banking) of the bank, said the tie-up is expected to help the NFCs in addressing concerns of small farmers and in turn transform the Indian agriculture ecosystem. It is very important to make FPCs in India financially viable as they play a crucial role in multiplying the income of the farmers, he added.
