Mission Organic Value Chain Development for North Eastern Region

Mission Organic Value Chain Development for North Eastern Region (MOVCD-NER) is a Central Government Scheme that has been established by the Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare. This is a sub-mission scheme under the National Mission for Sustainable Agriculture (NMSA) and is implemented in states such as Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Sikkim and Tripura. MOVCD-NER strives to develop certified organic production in a value chain mode, to link growers with consumers and to assist the development of the entire value chain starting from seeds, inputs, certification, to the creation of facilities for collection, aggregation, marketing, processing and brand building initiative.

Objectives

To enhance crop commodity-specific organic value chain and address gaps in organic crop production, organic livestock management, wild crop harvesting and processing handling and marketing of organic agricultural products by
- Promoting crop-specific organic production clusters with required infrastructural, technical and financial support
- Facilitating partnerships between farmers and organic business: Local entrepreneurs or farmer producer companies that are based on long-term trade relations with clients in domestic and export markets
- Rendering an enabling environment for project initiatives and developing programs with the required support for organic value chain development and creating market access
To empower producers with program ownership and by organizing them as Farmer Interest Groups (FIGs) and with an intention to amalgamate into farmers producer organization/companies.
To replace subsistence farming/conventional farming system into a local resource, concerning self-sustainable and high value commercial organic enterprises.
Develop commodity-specific commercial organic value chain under integrated and concentrated approach with end-to-end facilities for production, processing, storage and marketing.
Enlargement of organic park/zones with facilities for aggregation, collection, value addition, processing, storage and market-linkages for specific commodities that demands capital intensive technology.
Promote NER products as brands/labels through brand building and facilitating stronger marketing access under the ownership of growers organizations/companies.
Establish specific lead agency for coordinating, monitoring, supporting and financing the development and operationalization of the entire value chain.

Mission Goals

To organize dedicated institutional systems at the centre and under each state for development and promotion of organic farming.
To create at least one or two replicable end-to-end organic value chain models in every State with the integration of handlers, growers, processors and market facilitation agencies.
To empower 30-50 thousand farmers from the northeastern region by creating around 100 farmer producer companies and equip these companies with full value chain under its ownership.
To transform subsistence farming to commercial organic farming with end-to-end facilities.
To promote northeastern states as a major supplier of organic commodities for national and international markets.
To improve the production system to result in higher productivity with better profitability.
To enable states to create their brands.

Mission Strategies

To mobilize commodity clusters and facilitate handholding, capacity building and infrastructure creation for on-farm input production, training on a package of practices and facilitating certification services to farmers.
To facilitate creation and link enterprises that generates and operates collection, trade organic products and provide services to farmers and to work towards promoting their market.
To build lead agencies at central and state to partner with service providers, value chain supporting agencies and institute business development consultancies. To provide access for enterprises to offer efficient services, support them to build required management capacities and stimulate market growth.

Mission Implementation Structure

This scheme has been scheduled to be implemented in a mission mode. The mission structure comprises of National Advisory Committee (NAC), Executive Committee (EC), Mission Monitoring Committee (NMC) and Mission Head Quater at DAC&FW. At the state level, the mission would be implemented by the State Level Executive Committee (SLEC) and executed via a designated state Lead Agency in the form of state Organic Commodity Board or Organic Mission. The State Lead Agency functions under the overall supervision of the Department of Agriculture, and it shall be led by professional experts on contract.

Mission Components

The following are the components of the scheme:

Value Chain Production
Value Chain Processing
Value Chain Marketing
Value Chain Support Agencies

Sanction and Fund Flow Mechanism

Comprehensive project proposal for making commodity-specific end-to-end value chain has to be approved by the State Level Executive Committee and then has to be submitted to the PMU. The proposals would be further forwarded to the Mission Executive Committee for approval, after assessment and evaluation. Once it is approved, the year-wise funds would be released in instalments. Fundings would be provided directly to the State Lead Agency, following the instructions from SLEC.

Organic Mission

The Organic Mission/State Lead Agency/Organic Commodity Board serves as an independent agency, owning a bank account. All required professional/trained human resources and staff would be recruited on a contractual basis, from the funds that are provided for management of the lead agency. States can also name the existing state agencies as the lead agency. However, the implementation of the mission is authorized through dedicated resources that are used specifically for mission management and implementation. State Lead Agency acts as the nodal agency for the implementation of mission components and ensures effective realization of mission goals. The responsibilities of the State Lead Agency includes:

Receiving funds according to the sanction of DAC&FW.
Planning implementation process and identification of commodities, clusters, area etc.
Hiring resource agencies for FPC making and facilitates training, hand-holding, ICS management, documentation and certification of crop production.
Facilitating seeds/planting material and input availability.
Supervision and monitoring of field activities to ensure timely completion in a time-bound manner.
Facilitating tie ups with commerical enterprises and entrepreneurs to establish value addition infrastructure.
Facililitating financial institutions for credit facilitation and subsidy disbursal.
Promoting professional agencies for activities like branding, labelling, packaging, publicity and certification of processing units.
Organize seminars, conferences, buyer-seller meets, workshops, auction meetings, festivals etc.
Facilitate consumer awareness and information dissemination through printed literature, publicity, films and local advertisements.
Facilitate marketing of organic produce through farmer markets, direct retail, on-line retail chain, tying up with domestic retail chains and exporters.
Assuring information and knowledge that is received through the Information and Knowledge Ecosystem.
Ensures timely data uploading as per the Project Management Unit in the Ecosystem.

Submission of Action Plan

The states have to prepare a comprehensive Action Plan to develop an end-to-end value chain market, considering other available schemes and funds for associating with this scheme. Some significant strategies that have to be considered while preparing Action Plan include the following.

Identify crops that have market potential with the target area and quality.
Targeted production quality that has to compensate the minimum capacity required for post-harvest handling and processing unit up to a viable scale.
Emphasis has to be made for developing commercially viable production clusters in concentrated mode, by which farmers/growers can group into Farmer Interest Groups (FIGs) at village level and Farmer Producer Companies (FPCs) at District or State level.
Post-harvest management, value addition and processing facilities have to be developed in entrepreneurial mode or under FPCs in commercial collaboration with private enterprises that offers technical assistance and buyback assurance.
Activities such as brand building, publicity, consumer awareness and marketing that includes efforts to create 150 market days for identified value-added organic products.