K. SHANTI*, V. RAJENDRAPRASAD, N. VANI AND Sk. NAFEEZ UMAR

Department of Agricultural Economics, S.V. Agricultural College, ANGRAU, Tirupati-517502

ABSTRACT

In the era of globalization and free trade liberalization, the concept of collectivization or group initiation through local level

organization is very essential. Farmer Producer Organizations, principally using the concept of collectivisation, offer small farm- ers to participate in the market more effectively and collectively, they are in a better position to reduce transaction costs of ac- cessing inputs and outputs, obtaining the necessary market information, securing access to new technologies and allowing them to compete with larger farmers and agribusinesses. Keeping this in view the present study was conducted in Srikakulam district of Andhra Pradesh. Datawas collected from the FPOs through field survey by the interview method with the help of a pre-tested and well structure schedule. The results revealed that the majority (78.94%) of registered FPOs were promoted by NABARD followed by SFAC and BFTW each with 10.52 per cent respectively. The average number of members in FPOs promoted by NABARD was 531, SFAC promoted FPOs was 1250 and BFTW promoted FPOs was 835. The study revealed that in NABARD promoted FPOs 68.73 per cent of members were tribal farmers, in SFAC promoted FPOs it was 99.44 per cent while in the case of BFTW promoted FPOs all the members were tribal farmers only.

KEYWORDS: Farmer Producer Organizations (FPO), Socio-Economic Characteristics, Srikakulam.