Established in 1927, Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) is the largest and the leading business organizations in India. A non-government, non-profit organization, FICCI represents India’s business and industry outlook on a whole. FICCI pronounces the opinions and concerns of the sectors in India by engaging with the policy makers, regulators and civil society.
FICCI provides a platform for debate, ideation, networking and consensus building within and across sectors and is the first go to platform for the industry, policy makers and the Indian as well as international business community.
The members of the organisation come from Indian private and public corporate sectors as well as multinational companies, who are connected with various regional chambers of commerce and industries across states, connecting to over 2,50,000 companies.
FICCI’s focus on Agriculture
The agriculture unit at FICCI has been persistently working on agriculture policies and substantial efforts have been put into designing policies & making suggestions, over the years. The end goal being improving farm income, productivity, and international competitiveness of Indian Agriculture. FICCI has played a fundamental role in defining the Agri-policy background of the country.
Through its long standing collaboration with the Ministry of Agriculture, the Agriculture desk has worked diligently to promote public-private partnership in all the areas of agriculture value chain including farm mechanisation, agri warehousing, secondary agriculture, agri-marketing reforms and risk management . Also, in partnership with Government of India, FICCI organizes Eima Agrimach, a industry leading forum that brings latest farm mechanization technologies at one platform, facilitate an exchange of ideas and help in promotion of farm mechanization.
Key Objectives of FICCI Agriculture Desk
– Bring together all stakeholders including the Central and the State Governments to expedite the essential policy changes that are needed to make Indian Agriculture sector more progressive and competitive.
– Outline measures to achieve a higher trajectory growth in agriculture and contribute more to the country’s GDP by becoming internationally competitive.
– Identify major hurdles that prevent the growth of Indian agriculture
– Address the contradictory agriculture policies in the country relating to production, pricing and distribution, Minimum Support Prices (MSP), subsidy system, agri infrastructure facilities, export policies etc.
– The agriculture desk also works towards bringing attention to the need for structured local markets, modernization of infrastructure facilities, improving productivity, low yield and market access for farmers.
Impact that FICCI in bringing in the Agriculture industry
The Agriculture division in FICCI has also been responsible for organizing collaborative efforts to showcase newer agriculture technologies and breakthroughs in India, coming from multiple international countries. The latest technologies are a definite value add to the farmers of the country and FICCI’s collective pursuits work to the advantage of every stakeholder in the Agri value chain.
In collaboration with SFAC (Small Farmers’ Agri-Business Consortium), and Ministry of Agriculture, FICCI has created guiding principles for public-private partnership (PPP) for integrated agriculture development. In coming future, FICCI plans to launch the Million Farmers’ Initiative, which aims at connecting a million farmers with companies for holistic agriculture development. The PPP model leverages the combined synergies of operational effectiveness of the private sector and the financial investment by the public sector to deliver a complete solution to the end farmer. Million Farmers’ Initiative has received a positive response from the industry and roughly 35 project proposals have come from the private sector which has the potential to cover 1.2 million farmers.
Future Outlook
FICCI’s long term plans include creating awareness about agricultural innovations and technologies through training, skill workshops, capacity building programmes and organizing events to invite global participation. Another area of important consideration is development of an effective framework that define agriculture policies in the country and helps in bringing modern technologies as well as building agri infrastructure in the country. FICCI is working towards creation of Farmers’ Economic Well Being Index which would reflect the needs and the aspirations of farming community and policy changes that are needed at the country level.
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