Travanco chalks out action plan to improve lives of Kerala’s marginal farmers
Travancore Rural Development Producer Company Limited (Travanco) has formulated an action plan — “Strengthening of the livelihoods of 40,000 marginal farmers’‘ — to help increase their income from farming by up to four-fold.
The action plan is aimed at achieving the stated goal by imparting training and credit facilities to farmers to start poly-houses, farming in vegetable, banana, dairy, mushroom, bee, goat rearing, chicken farms etc, said Adoor Sethu, Chief Executive Officer, Travanco.
A ₹250-crore project has been drawn up for uplifting the marginal farmers in FY25 and taking the strength of farmers in the company to 50,000. In the next phase, clusters and procurement based on crops and products will be formed to enter the market with value-added products, he said. “We have been collectively giving about ₹1 crore as Kisan Mitra loan on an average to 200 farmers in a month in the last one-and-a-half years. Till now, ₹15 crore has been disbursed to over 3,000 farmers across more than 600 farmer interest groups. Not even a single farmer has defaulted on repayment till date proves the success of the project,” he said.
Using own funds
Travanco has been extending credit to farmers using its own funds, without utilising a bank loan. Recently, Federal Bank and Canara Bank have come forward to join hands with Travanco, he added.
With a membership of 8,500 farmers and an annual turnover of ₹10 crore, he said the company has registered notable profit during the last 16 years. With an objective to turn farmers into entrepreneurs, it also imparts training to farmers, and day-to-day operational assistance.
Plans are also afoot to open Mega Agri Hyper markets across Kerala in the current fiscal to sell agriculture inputs, seeds, value added products from farms at reduced prices, he added.