Tag: Markets & Value Chains
The Formal Supports the Informal: Agricultural Technology Sharing in Southern Bihar
Across a village in southern Bihar, cropping calendars collapse into a handful of critical days. Missing the planting window by even a couple of days can reduce yields enough to affect a household’s livelihood. Everyone needs the same machine at…
Improving Nutrition Through Supermarket Sales
This policy brief presents the results of a TCI-supported study examining the effect of direct supermarket sales on the nutrition outcomes of farm households in India. Researchers surveyed more than 500 vegetable-growing households in India’s Delhi National Capital region. Heads of household and their spouses...
Study Finds Supermarket Sales Improve Farmers’ Nutrition
A study supported by the Tata-Cornell Institute for Agriculture and Nutrition (TCI) reveals that selling directly to supermarkets yields nutritional dividends for India’s smallholder farmers. Published in the journal Agricultural Economics, the study demonstrates that farm households who sell vegetables…
Farm to Fork: Exploring Food Value Chains in India
In late February, we set out to explore five food value chains as part of TCI’s Promoting Value Chains for Climate Resilience and Nutritious Diets project, which aims to assess the challenges facing different value chains and recommend appropriate solutions.…
Seven Charts That Explain Why Some FPOs Succeed While Others Fail
Farmer producer organization (FPO) growth is at its highest rate ever. An explosive 35,332 farmer producer companies (FPCs) have been promoted over the last five years, and annual agricultural producer cooperative (APC) promotion is at 6,000 cooperatives a year, the…
Is the Formation of Farmer Producer Organizations from Self-Help Groups the Key to Women’s Agricultural Development?
Self-help groups (SHGs) have been a source of women’s empowerment and livelihood development across India. SHGs are a small collection of individuals who meet and work together to encourage savings, provide microcredit, and promote entrepreneurship amongst members. However, the literature…
TCI Hands Off FPO Platform to Indian Ministry of Agriculture
The Farmer Producer Organization Platform for India, the only comprehensive database of Indian farmer producer organizations (FPOs), will be transferred to India’s Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers’ Welfare under an agreement with the platform’s creator, the Tata-Cornell Institute for Agriculture…
Key Findings from TCI’s Report on FPOs in India
Last month, we published “The State of Farmer Producer Organizations in India: Performance, Trends, and the Role of Gender.” The report offers an assessment India’s farmer producer organization (FPO) ecosystem, including survival rates, financial performance and governance models. In addition,…
Nutritional Impacts of Direct Selling to Supermarkets: The Case of Farm Households in India
Abstract A growing body of literature examines the developmental impacts of smallholder participation in supermarket value chains in developing countries, yet evidence on the nutritional implications for farm households remains limited. This study investigates how direct sales to supermarkets influence household nutritional outcomes among vegetable...
New Report Offers First-Ever Assessment of India’s Farmer Producer Organizations
A new report from the Tata-Cornell Institute for Agriculture and Nutrition (TCI) and the Bankers Institute of Rural Development (BIRD) Lucknow provides the first comprehensive assessment of the Indian government’s push to promote farmer producer organizations (FPOs) as a means…