(i) Enabling Marketing of Agricultural Commodities

Intervention in agriculture to Enhance Productivity, Value Addition and Market Linkage of Agricultural Commodities

Basically the farming community is facing lot of problems from production till marketing. The farmers are severely affected year after year due to vagaries of monsoon and they are not able to get desired yield and fair price. Hence, Jeevidam intervenes to organize them into Producer Groups based on the specific agricultural commodities and give capacity building training to them on improved technologies to enhance their productivity

While selling the marketable surplus the lion share goes to middlemen. They are forced to sell immediately after harvesting, since they are not having adequate storage space as well as the emergent need to repay the loan obtained to purchase inputs. Hence, Collective Marketing method is introduced among the farmers to sell their produce at a better price. To get an incremental income, value addition of the agricultural produce is taken up wherever possible.

Jeevidam organizes "Collective Marketing" for the following products.

Small Millets

Ragi (Finger Millet), Samai (Little millet), Kudiraivali (Barn yard millet), Varagu (Kodo millet) and Thenai (Fox tail millet) are small seeded crops. Millets are one of the oldest known food crops, which are very popular in villages in earlier years. These crops are cultivated in marginal soil fertility under rain fed conditions which constitute around 70% of the total cultivated area.

These small millets are rich in minerals like iron, magnesium, phosphorus, potassium & calcium as compared to rice & wheat. The calcium content of Ragi is about 10 times more than that of rice & wheat. These small millets are also rich in vitamins (thiamine) and contain more fibre with less Glycemic index. So it is good for managing major life style diseases like diabetes, hyper tension, obesity and some types of cancer.

We are taking efforts to bring back the cultivation of these small millets in the rainfed areas to increase the income of the rainfed farmers and to ensure food and nutrition security for the people.

We provide seeds, technology for productivity enhancement, value addition and are marketing these millets in large volume.

Processed grains of these millets are available for sales.