Farmer And The New-Age Health Market

India’s booming nutraceutical market provides a big opportunity to farmer producer organisations

- B Salome Yesudas

Climate Change and malnutrition are, perhaps, currently the world’s two most poignant concerns. While the issues have garnered everyone’s focus, they have also become sore topics. The fact that youngsters have recently become involved in the fight against climate change gives one hope, because their involvement might trigger some action from the elders too. The issue of malnutrition, however, has had no such luck; though there has been much talk on nutrition of late.

In India, our traditional agriculture took care of our nutritional needs because it was based on mixed cropping. Millets, pulses, oilseeds, vegetables, edible uncultivated greens—all shared the same space, water, time, pests and labour. But when we shifted to monocropping, we ended up with nutritional deficiencies. A solution, however, now appears in sight.

In recent years, the government has encouraged farmer producer organisations (FPO) to boost farmers’ income, health, nutrition and living standard. FPOs are registered companies, owned and managed by farmers or groups of farmers. There are about 5,000 ​FPOs in the country and the government has announced support for the formation of another 10,000. These FPOs would have about 750,000 farmers, assuming that 500 farmers are involved per FPO. If FPOs can enter the nutrition business, they can profit and also help bridge the country’s nutrition gap.