Nimma Thota a ray of hope for farmers

The agri e-zone Nimma Thota, an initiative of Centre for Social Entrepreneurship, Department of Commerce, Manipal University, in association with National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (Nabard), has raised new hopes for the farmers by decreasing the intervention of middlemen in selling activities and providing assistance in the creation of a new market.

Coordinator of the centre Dr H G Joshi told Deccan Herald that the objective of the project is to motivate and promote Farmers Producers’ Organisations in three clusters --- Kukkehalli, Benegal and Mattu villages.

Dr Joshi said, “It is a result of farmers’ grievances. They always complain that they don’t have direct access to customers and they always sell their produce to middlemen for minimum prices. They feel that the customers actually pay more to buy their produce and what they get is pittance. So we chalked out a plan and provided them a space in Manipal to sell fresh vegetables and other agricultural produce of Kukkehalli, Mattu and Benegal villages.”

He said the university joined hands with Nabard in this project to support the agriculturists through a platform to unite them under the banner Farmer Producers’ Organisation. Through this novel initiative, agriculturists have a single point for selling and hence, can escape from the menace of middlemen, he noted.

Dr Joshi said the growers can be sure of getting reasonable prices for their produce and the movement of agricultural produce will also be speeded up as Manipal is located centrally. “Large scale dealing is done with proper networking. Initially, the project has been taken up as for a period of one year on a trial basis. If it proves to be beneficial to the farmers, the project will be continued.”

In order to create a valid supply chain, Agri-app has been developed. It acts as an interface between the suppliers and the end-users. The app has features like data base of suppliers, information about availability of vegetables and agricultural products on daily basis, seasonality of supply, time of availability, pricing of vegetables and quantity and quality.

The collection of vegetables and other agricultural produce at three clusters and the price will be decided by the Agricultural Growers’ Society Udupi. The transactions are exclusively dealt with the farmers and agricultural growers, Dr Joshi added.