Panaji: The state cabinet on Friday approved the Goa Farmer Producer Organisations (FPO) Policy, 2026 to strengthen institutional coordination, professional management, access to finance and infrastructure, and market governance.The policy will be in force until March 31, 2031, with provisions for review, amendment or extension by govt. It aims to help farmers access credit and shared infrastructure, support technology adoption and value addition, improve market access, and enable convergence of central and state schemes.The Goa State Amritkal Agriculture Policy, 2025 (GSAAP-2025) identifies the formation and strengthening of FPOs, farmer producer companies (FPCs), farmer groups, societies, associations and self-help groups as a core focus area. In line with this, the directorate of agriculture has drafted the Goa FPO Policy, 2026 to provide a dedicated state framework covering governance, management, finance, infrastructure, technology, value addition, marketing and scheme convergence.While FPOs have been formed in Goa under various initiatives, the state is introducing a uniform framework for registration and categorisation, coordination among departments, professional support, and improved access to finance and infrastructure.Key provisions include designating the directorate of agriculture as the nodal department and implementing authority, setting up the Goa State FPO Mission Cell, creating a state FPO repository and governance portal, establishing monitoring and facilitation systems for inter-departmental convergence, and creating an FPO Fund with an initial corpus of Rs 3 crore per year, subject to budget provision, fund availability and finance department concurrence.The estimated annual financial implication is Rs 3 crore towards the initial corpus of the proposed FPO Fund.The policy also empowers the directorate of agriculture to issue schemes, operational guidelines, eligibility conditions, financial limits, monitoring procedures and implementation orders, with approval of the competent authority and concurrence of concerned departments wherever required.
