Terra Firma, a government of India-recognised agricultural training centre, has mooted what it calls Farmer's World, a supermarket chain to be run by agriculture graduates who have trained to become agripreneurs.
It is being jointly promoted by Small Farmers Agri Business Consortium, a society under the union ministry of agriculture.
Farmer's World will be a one-stop shop selling all farm produce under one roof.
The ultimate aim is to provide job opportunity to at least 5,000 agriculture graduates, who will be linked with each other.
The entrepreneurs can place their order with the central hub and get delivery within 24 hours through a transport network being organised by Terra Firma.
The central hub will help in creating a farmers' input (seeds, fertilisers, bio-pesticides) supply chain, render marketing and other services required by farmers and the agripreneurs, act as an information kiosk and impart technical know-how and extension service.
Each local centre will be constituted as a private limited company, with agriculture graduates as its directors. The initial cost of each centre will be Rs 80 lakh {Rs 8 million (estimate made by SFAC)}.
The agripreneurs will contribute Rs 800,000 as promoter's equity, National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development will give a subsidy of Rs 20 lakh (Rs 2 million) under a programme of the National Horticultural Board, SFAC will provide a venture capital loan of Rs 12 lakh (Rs 1.2 million) at zero per cent interest, which is payable after the repayment of bank loan, and a term loan of Rs 40 lakh (Rs 4 million) will be raised from commercial banks.
Leading banks such as ICICI Bank, Vijaya Bank, HDFC Bank, Canara Bank and Syndicate Bank have come forward to finance these projects. Over and above all this, the state agriculture and horticulture department will provide up to 20 per cent subsidy.
Terra Firma is presently conducting a market study and logistics survey and hopes that the network will be in place within six months.
The company will act as a nodal agency, identifying and training entrepreneurs, conducting market surveys, preparing the detailed project report for each centre and help in setting up the centres and monitoring the scheme. "We act as a service provider.
Terra Firma expects that each entrepreneur will make a business turnover of about Rs 2 crore (Rs 20 million) annually, on which it plans to charge service fee of about 2-3 per cent. "This will not be a permanent arrangement. It is not compulsory for them to rely on our support,"
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