Safe food initiatives

The solution is designed to support the development of FPOs for production of the safe food supply chain in Gautam Buddha Nagar. The solution is envisioned to collect farmers doing natural farming from diverse geographies under one umbrella through institutionalisation. It would increase the representation for these unorganised farmers community and increase the bargain power through expanding market access for farmers with complementary investments in technical services and risk management capabilities. Technical expertise and convergence with the government will be successfully closing the gaps between producer and consumer by working as key players in safe food initiative. The idea behind incubation of FPO is based on the belief that the cost of their safe food products will be recuperated by the benefits and income gains that smallholders will achieve. Farmer producer organization will work on increasing water efficiency, Post-Harvest Value through packaging solutions to increase shelf life and storage solutions.

From production to consumption - food safety is not only a shared responsibility but also a civic right. Every year more than 600 million people fall ill and 420 000 die from eating food contaminated with bacteria, viruses, parasites, toxins, or chemicals. Unsafe food accounted for 33 million disability-adjusted life years in 2010.

With rapid rate of urbanization due to growth of population, land utilisation under agriculture has substantially increased. PnP has undertaken a study on ‘Market demand assessment from producer and buyer perspective of key Agri produce in Hindon basin’.  This was done for World Bank/IFC 2030 Water Resources Group, Ganga/ Hindon Rejuvenation (Nirmal Hindon Initiative).  The survey information was used to prepare a broader proposal for Safe Food Initiative Programme. As part of this study, an in-depth survey involving of vegetable production, prices, and clusters from various government departments in the concerned districts was done. Analysis of data showed that the sector marketing of Safe foods was unorganised and there is a high need of institutionalisation. The farmers producing its products using in a natural and sustainable method have diverse geographical locations. Institutionalisation would help become organised and increase the scope of accessing competitive markets. 

As the world’s population grows, the intensification and industrialization of agriculture and animal production to meet increasing demand for food creates both opportunities and challenges for food safety. Climate change is also predicted to impact food safety. WHO (2015) report on the estimates of the global burden of foodborne diseases presented the first-ever estimates of disease burden caused by 31 foodborne agents at global and regional level. Chemical contamination in the form of biotoxins and use of excessive pesticides can lead to acute poisoning or long-term diseases.

These challenges put greater responsibility on food producers and handlers to ensure food safety. Unsafe food poses global health threats, endangering everyone. Infants, young children, pregnant women, the elderly and those with an underlying illness are particularly vulnerable. Urbanization and changes in consumer habits. Globalization has triggered growing consumer demand for a wider variety of foods, resulting in an increasingly complex and longer global food chain.

The International Conference on Food Safety held in Addis Ababa in February 2019, and the International Forum on Food Safety and Trade held in Geneva in 2019, reiterated the importance of food safety in achieving the Sustainable Development Goals. 

The key beneficiaries for the solution would be farmers who have practiced livelihood allied to agriculture. They will be effectively engaged in agribusinesses (Storage and testing), become entrepreneurs (safe food business development), use government policies and schemes (promotion of natural farming) for their benefit, know how to save and invest their earnings and use digital platforms for financial purposes.

Partners in Prosperity did a consultation workshop with scientists, academicians, government officials, lead farmers, and village leaders to understand the need of the solution. An assessment of a small sample of villages was also conducted to help create a profile of the problems and opportunities in the area.

The project development objective is to support the development of farmer producer enterprise involved in safe food supply chain in and around Noida. PnP will combine expertise in sustainable incubation of social entrepreneurs and food safety disciplines to develop measures to prevent or minimize food safety risks at the most critical stages of the chain.  PnP will provide hand-holding to the entrepreneurs in soil testing of the agricultural fields and post-harvest technologies such as food testing as per government standards, storage.

With rapid rate of urbanisation, the balance between the available lands for cultivation is diminishing day to day. To meet the ever-ending demand of food supply farmers are forced to use chemicals and pesticides to increase the yield. As a matter of fact, land degradation becomes an obvious phenomenon. Unlike the vicious cycle of poverty, the farmers fall victim to the pesticide trap. This pesticide trap deteriorates the land quality affecting the income level of farmers. Thus, institutionalisation of natural produces will increase market accessible and income of the farmers along with making safe natural foods accessible to all.

PnP will work with farmers doing natural farming i.e. use all naturally available resources within their own farm to grow food e.g. cow dung for manure and neem leaves as pesticides, thus not investing / dependent on market for growth of their food crop. With emerging government schemes, and policies such as Paramparagat Krishi Vikas Yojana (PKVY), Mission Organic Value Chain Development in North Eastern Region (MOVCDNER), National Centre of Organic Farming (NCOF), Operation Greens act as an incentive to farmers are shifting towards a natural cultivation other than restoration of their land. These farmers are spread over diverse geographies are it is crucial to bring them under one umbrella through organisations.

With the surging popularity of the organic food market is transforming the way people eat. Organic farming on the other hand uses organically certified, safe fertilisers & pesticides to grow food. Organic certification is provided to farms growing with this method. Now other more diverse methods such as permaculture, bio dynamic farming is being used by farmers too. The organic industry persists to be a bright spot in the food and agriculture economy both at the producer’s level as well as consumers level. Organic handling, manufacturing, and processing facilities are being opened, enlarged, and retooled. The primary competitors for this solution will be leading MNCs, Wholesalers, large farmers, and FPOs working on organic value chains. 

PnP will develop SOPs and provide training to the beneficiaries on soil testing, water testing use in the fields for irrigation but also examine the traceability. PnP will help in developing web-based management tools and procedures to track produce from the farm, to the packer, distributor and retailer.

The farmers will be trained on seed parameters, proper harvesting practices, safe irrigation, pest attacks, and controlled use of pesticides along with Post-harvest and storage facilitation, training and handholding support for sorting, grading, preservation, storage, packaging, and marketing.

PnP will promote Smart storage technologies that helps in online detection and monitor the changes of quality parameters and storage environment of fresh foods during storage, so that operators can make timely adjustments to reduce the loss. The smart storage technologies from two aspects: online detection technologies and smartly monitoring technologies for fresh foods. Online detection technologies include electronic nose, nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR), near infrared spectroscopy (NIRS), hyperspectral imaging and computer vision. Smartly monitoring technologies mainly include some intelligent indicators for monitoring the change of storage environment. Smart storage technologies applied to fresh foods need to be highly efficient and non-destructive and need to be competitively priced.

PnP will support the FPO in training of farmers, Soil testing, food safety testing., demonstration of low cost post harvesting technologies, community pack house design and operation, bank credit linkage to Agri entrepreneurs under extant rules, Quality Assurance, FSSAI Certification, Aggregation and Branding

The key business risks include product contamination, unfair competition from fraudulent players, lack of consistent quality of supply, shortage of certified good quality inputs, multiple regulatory bodies with piece meal policies, and lack of supply chain and infrastructure.

The thrust area under the solution are Rice/Wheat- Integrated Plant Nutrient Management (IPNM), Integrated Weed Management (IWM) in Rice cropping; Vegetables- Organic Vegetables farming; Value Addition- Value addition by aggregating vegetables properly sorted, graded, and packaged in community pack house itself. 

Link to few Literature: 

1, Halberg, Niels, and Adrian Muller, eds. Organic agriculture for sustainable livelihoods. Routledge, 2012.

2. Nair, S. D. "Future strategy-climate smart agriculture and carbon credits through FPOs." Indian Coconut Journal 57, no. 8 (2014): 9-11.

3. Nayak, Amar KJR. "Optimal Institutional Architecture of Farmer Producer Organizations for Sustainable Value Creation for Small and Marginal Farmers." In Financing Agriculture Value Chains in India, pp. 239-250. Springer, Singapore, 2017.

4. Chatterjee, T., & Ganesh-Kumar, A. (2016). Geographic Neighbourhood and Cluster Formation: Evidence from Indian Agriculture. The Journal of Development Studies, 52(11), 1577-1592. 

5. Dev, M. S. (2014). Small farmers in India: Challenges and opportunities. Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research, Mumbai, India.

6. TechSci Research. (2017). Global Organic Food Market Forecast and Opportunities, 2020. Manhattan,

7. YES BANK & Ingenus Strategy and Creative Research. (2016). Indian Organic Sector Vision 2025.
New Delhi, India.

8. Kitinoja, Lisa. "Innovative small-scale postharvest technologies for reducing losses in horticultural crops." Ethiopian Journal of Applied Sciences and Technology 1, no. 1 (2013): 9-15.

PnP’s approach is to develop strategic partnerships with government, private agencies and corporate sectors to create sustainable model for year-round business prospects among local women farmers, social entrepreneurs and end consumers. Our effort is to incorporate sustainability parameters (e.g., reduce water, climate and community risks, losses and waste) and build sustainable supply chains. Create and sustain social enterprises to support produce aggregation, information sharing and learning, technical support, linking with public sector schemes, funding opportunities and mechanisms.

•             Multi-stakeholder dialogue through social entrepreneurs to increase awareness and recognition that commitment and communication are essential to help smallholders’ benefit from value chains. Social entrepreneurs’ will diagnose problems, identify opportunities, and find ways to achieve their goals.

•             Vertical integration: The vertical integration focuses on vertical relationships between buyers and suppliers, warehouses, and transport providers.

The project development objective is to support the development of farmer producer enterprise involved in safe food supply chain in and around Noida. PnP will combine expertise in sustainable incubation of social entrepreneurs and food safety disciplines to develop measures to prevent or minimize food safety risks at the most critical stages of the chain.  

PnP is proposed to concentrate efforts on 15 villages of Dadri in the 1st year and further expanding to Dankaur block in the  upcoming  3 years. 

PnP will work towards Improving livelihood of 1050 women by increasing their income by 30% in 2 years, Create an integrated vegetable & pulse value chain – from farm to dining plate – which is profitable for farmer and safe for the consumer  and setup Safe Food Value Chain. 500 women farmers will financially be benefiting from project interventions. 1050 female farmers will be trained on smart sustainable agriculture within 2 years

PnP will scale up livelihood improvement to 3000 farmers doing natural farming trough training, capacity building and hand holding , among which 1000 women farmers would be benefited from project intervention within the upcoming 5 years.

Safe food is everybody's right. Natural and organic food till date has been a niche product and is available to a handful of population. PnP envisions to make safe food system accessible to all in the same price margin. 

The overall goal of this project is to offer women livelihood opportunities for a meaningful future through skill development, farmer producer organization, market based Agri enterprises. PnP also envision to make safe food system for all. 

PnP will help in organise women farmers and help them earn decent income through vegetable and pulses marketing

Establishment of a well-functioning, profitable farmer producer company and emergence of new leadership among women farmers.

Sale of vegetables and pulses through adherence to SOPs and avoidance of short cuts

Access to Safe Food with reduction in health hazardous substances through adherence to SOPs in farming. 

1. Lack of Funding: For the transition to safe food value chain happen successfully, the investment needs are vast – the largest share of which will be for technology for production, tracking, storage and distribution.

2. Market Volatility: Volatility of input costs and selling prices, coupled with the unpredictability of weather and yields, is particularly difficult to manage in farming because of the long production cycles and the inability to respond to market movements. This will create pressure on farmer enterprise to manage consumers as well as farmers from his end.

3. Climate Change: Extreme weather and climate change increases the risk of losing money as weather-induced lower yields not only create risk but also working capital strain due to the long cash cycle.

4. Infrastructure: Bad infrastructures limit access to markets and increases costs to the consumers. Under investment in infrastructure amplifies exposure to major risks. Either lack of modern logistics for aggregating perishable products or use of obsolete technology for aggregate marketing will hamper growth potential.

1. Integration with bigger Safe Food Value Chain: Leading companies working online grocery shopping are investing in securing their supply chain, developing plans to manage recalls, and enhancing product labelling and traceability. They are building compliance systems to ensure they follow all regulatory regimes where their product is consumed. Retailers are cooperating closely with other actors along the value chain to fulfil consumer needs by putting joint effort into warehouse operations, including inventory management, order management, and fulfilment. Providing last mile solutions to them through their business model will be lead towards financially sustainable future.

2. Community Based Institution: A community-based institution opens way for various grants-based support from the government institutions like SFAC, NAFPO and NABARD. And a farmer producer company will have ease of collaboration with other players due to its size and prime location near NCR. 

3. Secure/safe supply chain: Today consumers are thinking about food—from how it’s produced and what’s in it, to where and when they eat it. This will lead to changes in consumer behaviour as there is widespread phenomenon of obesity, diabetes, high blood pressure, and other diseases and health problem

Partners in Prosperity is Registered under the Societies Registration Act 1860

Board Members: 12                                   

Administration Staff: 04

Technical Staff: 36                                      

Support Staff: 02

The project team will comprise of a PnP CEO, 1 Project Manager and 5 Field Managers. 

PnP CEO provides oversight, technical guidance and back office support to the project. Responsible for reporting to the donor.

Project Manager is responsible for field coordination, management of training calendar, hiring subject specialists, and maintaining relationship with local and external partners, maintain accounts, and prepare timely plans and reports.

There shall be 5 field managers responsible for i) farmer mobilization and procurement; ii) market linkages, buyer-seller meet; iii) Training and capacity building; iv)  office assistance and accountant; v) Communication using social media, Monitoring and Reporting.

Community Resource Persons will be hired on casual basis and shall be paid through the farmer producer company.

Members of various projects of PnP Delhi will provide logistics, administrative and other support. 

PnP is working with over 20000 farmers in organic Basmati rice in  Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh, organic coffee and cashew value chain in Andhra Pradesh  and SRP rice in Haryana to promote package of best practices, aggregation, and market linkages to producer organisation within and outside the country. The organisation receives payment for its services from companies and donors. PnP recognises that income earned model is the way to go forward.

In addition to this, PnP has launched a pilot project on Mountain Nutrition Sensitive agriculture with the help of IFAOM/Helvetas/Wealth Hunger Live. PnP will be promoting Biofloc as an extension by policy working model of Nutrition sensitive back end aquaculture. Diversification to high-value agriculture is the only way millions of India’s smallholders can earn a decent income off their farms and meet their nutritional requirements.  PnP accords high priority to water conservation and efficient utilisation of natural resources. The ground water depletion across India is a matter of major concern. It is seeking ways to promote moisture conservation, alternate methods of cultivation, and shifting to horticulture, tank fisheries and other crops which provide “win-win” solution for natural resource use, nutrition, food security and income generation

PnP has excellent working experience with Swiss Solidarity, National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD), GIZ, Friends of Women Banking India (FWWBI), Unitus Seed Capital,  Water.org, Caspian Advisors, and State government of Uttarakhand, Andhra Pradesh  and Rajasthan.

Farmer Producer Organization/Collective will use market-driven methods to advance their social mission to serve the “the last mile of the farmers” Because of their strong presence and understanding of the local communities they serve, they often develop a business model that is faster and more cost-effective in providing basic, quality services and products.

PnP will work on Go 2 Market (G2M) Strategy

• Our target market is middle class consumers’ community in Delhi NCR.
• Our target beneficiaries are women in small farms and family in urban places.
• Product positioning. Expect more. Pay less for real food.
• Unique value proposition – Safe food for all at lower transaction cost to both producers and consumers.
• Distribution channels –Direct selling online on behalf of farmers; selling through intermediary social enterprises
• Revenue model. Grant, commission on sale from social enterprises, financial brokering for warehouses, and suppliers, and certification of food supplied.
• Organisation strategy: One ecosystem at a time.

We would like Solve to provide handholding for

• Grant Funding
• Organizational Development mentoring for the revenue/ fund diversification model.
• Hand holding support to develop a clear social enterprise strategy with respect to macro environment.
• Curated tailored hand-holding sessions on social enterprise functions like financial modelling, marketing and sales, value proposition identification and strategic social business planning support for the team.
• Technical assistance on production design, quality management and process optimization through technology solutions.
• Network access to impact investors, banks and other philanthropic funding agencies.
• Media access and exposures.

PnP requires mentoring in scaling up the business model. There are modern post harvest and storage technologies available using Artificial Intelligence. PnP seeks support in the technical know how of the technology. Safe foods systems and storage technology requires a vast amount of investment. PnP is looking for a grant funding to facilitate training of women youth entrepreneurs in agribusiness 

PnP would partner with Agriculture Commission, Technology partners for safe food systems, marketing partners, Government organisations, and knoledge partners. The partnership would be done through Liaisoning, collaboration and stakeholders consultation. 

The probable partner organisations would be as follows: 

Krishi Vigyan Kendra, Village Chhoulas, - Training of farmers, Soil testing, food safety testing.
National Institute of Food Technology Entrepreneurship and Management (NIFTEM), Sonepat- Demonstration of low cost post harvesting technologies.
Agrostar, Noida and World Vegetable Centre, c/o ICRISAT, Hyderabad*- Community pack house design and operation.
NABARD, Syndicate Bank (District Lead Bank) and Bandhan Bank- Bank credit linkage to agri entrepreneurs under extant rules.
Private vegetable buyers- Door step purchase agreements; buyer-seller meets
Rice exporters Contract farming arrangement with LT Foods*, Patanjali*, India Gate, Fortune rice, etc. PnP has existing relations with all of them
Knowledge partner- Department of Economics and Public Policy, Shiv Nadar University, and SVP University of Agriculture & Technology, Meerut.

The solution focuses on creating livelihood opportunities for a meaningful future through skill development, farmer producer organization, market based Agri-enterprises for women. The main objective of the solution is to train 1050 women  youth  in climate smart agriculture. The solution will help in emergence of new leadership among women farmers trough establishment of a well-functioning, profitable farmer producer company. This intervention will also help in increasing 30% of the farmers income within 2 years. 

The Innovation for women prize will be utilised in setting up Women FPOs and provide training to the young women be become entrepreneurs. The prize will also be utilised for setting up demonstrations of low cost post harvest and storage technology. 

PnP will promote Smart storage technologies that helps in online detection and monitor the changes of quality parameters and storage environment of fresh foods during storage, so that operators can make timely adjustments to reduce the loss. The smart storage technologies from two aspects: online detection technologies and smartly monitoring technologies for fresh foods. Online detection technologies include electronic nose, nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR), near infrared spectroscopy (NIRS), hyperspectral imaging and computer vision. Smartly monitoring technologies mainly include some intelligent indicators for monitoring the change of storage environment. Smart storage technologies applied to fresh foods need to be highly efficient and non-destructive and need to be competitively priced. 

With the availability of funding a PnP would adopt these kind of technologies for the progress of FPOs.