Building bridges in policy implementation during a pandemic: insights from an e-survey on Indian Producer Organisations

ABSTRACT

Despite the widely acknowledged importance of consultative policymaking, interventions to encourage stakeholder participation remain scarce. The presence of exigencies, such as the pandemic, can further normalise the lack of participative processes unless serious alternatives are presented. This paper presents the results of an exercise, during the pandemic, on Farmer Producer Organisations (FPOs) through an e-survey of stakeholders whose views, if considered, could have avoided some of the implementation gaps and challenges before the rollout. The survey process demonstrates how facilitated and well-designed consultations can enable a better buy-in in policy implementation and importantly help build state capacity through such processes, despite the pandemic. The paper also highlights the need for scholars and citizens to pay greater attention to the everydayness of policy implementation beyond presenting critiques of policy formulation.

KEYWORDS:

• Farmer producer organisations (FPOs)
• consultative policy design
• e-survey
• stakeholder engagement
• state capacity

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank all the respondents for their time in filling the survey and the participants at different forums where the results were shared.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 One of the authors was a member of the Expert Committee set up by SFAC to develop uniform policy guidelines. The committee met thrice and presented recommendations in July 2018, highlighting the roles of both central and state governments in enabling ease of doing business for FPOs. The version later prepared by the Ministry of Agriculture in March 2019 involved substantial changes in the institutional design that were perceived not in interests of smallholders. The final guidelines prepared by the Ministry were presented to stakeholders in November 2019 for a national rollout that was delayed by the pandemic to July 2020.

2 A major deviation from the new guidelines is a phased payment structure and an explicit reference to the creation and incubation of FPOs over a potential five-year span of up to Rs 25 lakhs over five years and Rs 18 lakhs over the first three years of service. The provisions shall include the support for a CEO and an accountant (Rs 35,000/month), one-time registration cost (maximum of Rs 40,000/year), office rent, utility charges, etc.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

C. Shambu Prasad

C. Shambu Prasad is Professor, Strategic Management and Social Sciences, at the Institute of Rural Management Anand (IRMA), India. His expertise and research include interdisciplinary fields such as social entrepreneurship, science and technology studies, managing producer collectives and rural livelihoods.

Abhishek Saxena

Abhishek Saxena is a doctoral (fellow programme) scholar at the Institute of Rural Management Anand (IRMA). His work involves looking at governance and management of producer organisations through the lens of stakeholder theory.

Deborah Dutta

Deborah Dutta is a Research and Documentation Consultant at IRMA, India. Her research areas span the field of environmental education and sustainable transitions with a focus on community-practice-based approaches such as urban farming.