By Our Reporter
SHILLONG, Jan 31: The procurement of ginger and turmeric by traders directly from farmers is thriving in North Garo Hills district with the Dijako Agro Farmer Producer Organization (FPO), Kharkhoota, dispatching 20 metric tonnes (MT) of produce to Jodhpur on Friday.
With this consignment, cumulative procurement under the model has reached 65 MT.
The initiative, centred on direct procurement without intermediaries, has so far benefited over 500 farmers, mainly small and marginal cultivators of ginger and turmeric. The model is aimed at ensuring assured pricing, preventing distress sales, and strengthening farmer access to organised markets.
An interaction meeting with the beneficiary farmers was held at Kharkhoota in the presence of Meghalaya New and Renewable Energy Development Agency (MNREDA) Chairman Rupat Momin and Dr Joram Beda, Director, MNREDA. The discussions focused on operational learnings, scalability, and long-term sustainability of the B2B (business to business) procurement framework.
Dr Beda said the initiative is being implemented as a pilot intervention under an Asian Development Bank-supported programme on enhancing rural livelihoods through renewable energy systems. He said the objective is to develop a replicable and scalable B2B procurement model for cash crops across districts and commodities, with MNREDA facilitating aggregation, logistics, and trust-building between farmers and buyers.
Momin said the intervention has helped address stress selling and local price manipulation, adding that improved procurement mechanisms have also led to better price realisation in local markets for ginger and turmeric.
Representatives of Cultivator Natural Product Production and Procurement Team, who participated in the interaction, said demand for Meghalaya’s ginger and turmeric remains strong, but consistent large-volume aggregation is a key challenge. They expressed confidence that with MNREDA’s facilitation and support from EY LLP, aggregation constraints can be addressed to ensure long-term procurement.
The collaboration among farmers, FPOs, buyers, MNREDA, and EY’s ground support teams is being positioned as a step towards building a transparent, farmer-centric agri-marketing ecosystem in Meghalaya. Officials said the pilot is expected to be scaled up in subsequent phases to include more farmers, higher volumes, and additional commodities.
