Diary of a Rural Manager!

A basic concept can be read here: 2014 - Year of Farmer Producer Organizations (FPOs) before going further ahead in this topic. Public Policy: There is always so much talk on FDI in retail, so it seems a good state to channel the same money for farmers’ producers’ cooperatives and ensure they get good margins and market access. The government of India (GoI) already invest Rs 275,000 crore in an agricultural subsidy budget that is constantly touted and needs to be unpacked. Who is the real beneficiary of these subsidies, farmers, or seeds, fertilizer manufacturers, and agricultural banks? That is where good public policy comes into play. The government of India (GoI) is promoting the concept of Farmer Producer Organizations going in the right step to engage and adapt agriculture to the market system. The primary objective of the collective mobilization of farmers into FPOs is to enhance the production, productivity, and profitability of especially small farmers in the country. FPO ...

Salary is one of the most critical components of a human resources strategy even in development sector. It is unreal, and perhaps even unfair, to expect that a development professional is going to do good to society at a loss to himself. This path has produced few rare exceptional people, but its not a sustainable way of growth. I think job anywhere is very simple; to work with the best of our ability, and inspire younger generation to excel given standards. Compensation, Experience , Commitment and Skill set creates the Job Profile. But there is always huge gap between supply and demand in development sector. The reason is below:

“Civilization is the distance we put between ourselves and our own excreta.” - Brian Aldiss, The Dark Light Years Indians are strange creatures as when we think of skills we are obsessed with IITs; when we think of health care we can scarcely think beyond doctors. At present, generally, the Indian has cleaning to the household level but is apathetic to the community where he lives. Even governments typically overspend on very high on expensive machines used in healthcare, at the expense of public goods such as community toilets, sewer pipes, low cost sanitary napkins etc. Despite of bad image of World bank among left in India, they will also agree with their suggestion of increased spendings of government on sanitation issue. India has already popular PPP model of community toilets and washroom in Sulabh Shauchalya . November 19th is celebrated as the World Toilet Day to raise awareness on the use of toilet, sanitation and clean water. I was invited to a primary school with Block D...

I always remember the words of Chinese Premier Deng Xiaoping - "It doesn't matter whether the cat is black or white, as long as it catches mice." So, now NGOs and the government are finally coming to the phase of acceptance of market forces in the development sector. The cooperative movement is already a failure except for a few notable examples. The government has never managed to manage any scheme efficiently. The government is partnering with various professional organizations for setting up a new institution in the country - Farmers Producer Company (FPC) / Farmer Producer Organizations (FPO). The legal framework is ready under the Companies Act. According to this new law, only farmer–producers can be members of the FPC and the farmer members themselves will manage this company. It takes care of the flaws in the cooperative societies but has also borrowed the strengths of the corporate companies. FPO/FPC will be dominating future debates on livelihood and its suc...

Udaipur Agro Producer Company Limited, UAPCL, is a social-enterprise company focused on strengthening the livelihoods of the community. The organization was registered on June 29, 2010. The company’s main concentration is building the surrounding community through direct collaboration. The company is comprised of 1635 members. Each member is a local farmer mostly small and marginal who owns a share of the company. UAPCL Annual General Meeting Share Certificate Distribution ACCESS Team with UAPCL Board of Directors ACCESS Development Services is working in the area of livelihood with FPOs (Farmer Producer Orgainzation). Here is a glimpse of Annual General Meeting organized by one such - UAPCL attended by 700 members. Here we see smallholder farmers not as marginal recipients of charity instead as customer entrepreneurs. I will be updating more on FPOs in this space.

Let me start with a joke: I have a MBA degree and wanna be consultant in future! Does any development organization need consultant ? Yes, they do. Analyst and Consultant form a core area of jobs created in the knowledge economy. Whereas a leader can win people over in an instant due to oration and vision, an analyst can do same with the technical wizardry. But the most over-hyped and over-mocked job belongs to consultant.  Consultants are not brought on to be unbiased. They are hired to confirm a particular bias. There is a popular one line gag on consultant - "If you are not a part of the solution, there's good money to be made in prolonging the problem." There is always a lot of conferences and consultations on ‘labour rights’ that continue to be held at five star hotels — which for one are known to underpay their employees — without a hint of irony. It may seem wrong, pragmatic, or indecisive and confused? Take your pick. A consultant must focus on collecting data and...

It's fine to have people working in development sector with degrees from the elite colleges. But even if they are good at statistics and analysis, they cannot be decision-makers without a grassroots experience. Problem with today’s education is that it doesn't have any relationship to the real world. Images get reinforced over time with newspaper, media and cinema. Innocent Villagers, Shrewd Businessmen, Corrupt bureaucracy and Selfish Political leaders become stereotype. Such perception breaks with each intersection and performance in the field. Living in the village with no other business but to follow native life in the present day of social media buzz and 24*7 connectivity seems bizarre. But one sees the traditions, ceremonies and transactions over and over again. What it leaves one with temporary chaos in the beginning. In addition to fostering mutual understanding, perpetually curiosity and occasionally confused volunteer start to see the way of living of a community....