GUWAHATI, Dec 3 � The ARIAS Society has formed 25 Farmer Producers� Organisations (FPOs) in Kamrup, Nalbari, Nagaon and Sonitpur under the World Bank-funded Assam Agricultural Competitiveness Project (AACP) to ensure remunerative prices to the producers/farmers.
The effort is also aimed at linking the markets with the agriculture surpluses generated in different production clusters, to develop a network of marketing intelligence and dissemination of information up to farmers� level.
It needs to be mentioned here that out of 25 FPOs, 10 FPOs are fisheries based FPOs in Nagaon and Sonitpur districts. The concept of exclusively Fishery FPO in the State is the first and a total of 5,046 FPO members from the 10 Fishery FPOs are systematically doing fish and fish seed production and marketing.
According to a government official, as a part of the initiative to hone the functioning of the FPOs and to gather knowledge of fishery co-operatives of West Bengal, a team of 50 FPO Fishery members have been sent to the Central Institute of Fisheries Education, Kolkata.
Additional Chief Secretary and Chairman of ARIAS Society VK Pipersenia said that this was an exposure visit which will boost the technical know-how of the FPO members and motivate them to replicate at the ground level for better unit fish yield in the State.
