Promotion of Innovative Agricultural Practices

At the beginning, in order to mitigate household food insecurity faced during the lean period, FC had promoted Cereal Banks (CB). Cereal Banks collects grains during harvest or surplus periods at lower price and store to lend back to members during deficit periods for seed and consumption. Later on, FC encouraged Cereal Banks to change themselves to market oriented organization known as Farmers Marketing organization (FMOs) that are mostly engaged in producing market oriented quality product to attract traders, processors and consumers to fetch premium price for farmers product while creating accessible market for farmers at nearby places. The FMOs are registered by cooperative promotion agency as agricultural marketing cooperatives and scaled up to the level of organizing farmers’ cooperatives union. Some cereal banks engaged in seed multiplication in collaboration with Agricultural Research Centers and government Seed Enterprises and received a certificate of seed multiplication cooperatives. The seed multiplication cooperatives were also organized the apex organization of seed multiplication union which is the first of its kind in the country.

Currently, FC is promoting farmers learning groups (FLGs) by organizing farmers in small groups to promote sustainable agricultural practices, soil fertility improvement, soil acidity treatment, and various organic fertilizer production systems like vermi compost, promotion of agro ecological practices, sustainable land management, small scale irrigation and forest conservation practices. In addition, FLGs are engaging in off farm income generating activities using the internal credit services from their groups. Moreover, FLGs are playing vital roles in protecting child rights, ensuring gender equality and inclusive development.