Identification of Constraints Associated with Farmers’ Producer Organisations (FPOs)

In the era of globalisation and free trade liberalisation, the concept of collectivisation or group initiation through local level organisation is very essential. Farmer Producer Organizations, principally using the concept of collectivisation offer small farmers to participate in the market more effectively and collectively, they are in a better position to reduce transaction costs of accessing inputs and outputs, obtaining the necessary market information, securing access to new technologies and allowing them to compete with larger farmers and agribusinesses. Keeping these in view the present study was conducted to identify the constraints associated with the functioning of Farmers’ Producers Organisation (FPO) to run this organisation smoothly by developing some coping strategies. The present study was conducted in Cooch Behar-I, Cooch Behar-II, Dinhata-I, Dinhata-II, Tufanganj-I, Tufanganj-II blocks of Cooch Behar district in West Bengal. Purposive and random sampling techniques were followed in case of selecting the area and the respondents of the present study. Data collection was done by structured interview schedule after pre-testing with the help of personal interview method. The Rank Based Quotient (RBQ) method was used to analyse the data and draw conclusion. The constraints were categorised into technical constraint, labour and economic constraint, marketing constraint and organisational constraints.