Did agri-bodies give farmers a boost? (Hindu Business Line)

The Hindu Business Line published an op-ed co-authored by IFPRI’s Senior Research Fellows Devesh Roy and Vinay Sonkar on the results of a study on Farmer Producer Organizations (FPOs) in Bihar, India. Among their core recommendations is that FPOs, which are embedded in India’s mission to double farmers’ incomes, would need to revise their policies of offering subsidies as an incentive for membership. The authors suggest that this be replaced with, “a proper selection mechanism for the promoters/organizations as well as members based on merit to avoid.”