UPSC Express

Consider the following statements about Small Farmers’ Agri-Business Consortium (SFAC)

1.     It is a society promoted by Department of Agriculture, Cooperation and Farmers Welfare

2.     It is implementing the National Agriculture Market Electronic Trading (e-Nam) platform

3.     It is a Central Procurement Agencies for pulses and oilseeds

Select the correct statements

a     1 and 2
b     2 and 3
c      1 and 3
d     All of the above
Explanation:

Solution (d)

The Government established Small Farmers’ Agri-Business Consortium (SFAC) as a Society in 1994 to facilitate agri-business ventures by catalysing private investment through Venture Capital Assistance (VCA) Scheme in close association with financial institutions.  The setting up of State level SFAC as counterpart agency of Central SFAC for agribusiness projects was part of the Scheme. The Scheme envisaged a corpus contribution from Central SFAC of Rs. 50.00 lakh to each State which establishes a State Level SFAC.   So far, 21 States have received funds for Central SFAC for setting up of State SFAC.

The role of State SFACs is to aggressively promote agribusiness project development in their respective States. The main functions of SFAC are:

·      Promotion of development of small agribusiness through VCA scheme;

·      Helping formation and growth of Farmer Producer Organizations (FPOs) / Farmer Producer Companies (FPCs);

·      Improving availability of working capital and development of business activities of FPOs/FPCs through Equity Grant and Credit Guarantee Fund Scheme;

·      Implementation of National Agriculture Market (e-NAM) Electronic Trading platform.

SFAC is one of the Central Procurement Agencies for pulses and oilseeds under Price Stabilisation Fund of Department of Consumer Affairs.