Ashok Kumar, Executive Director, Livelihoods & Value Chains, M-CRIL and a renowned expert of the Farmer Producer Organisations/producer companies (FPO) and livelihoods sector was invited to present on‘’M-CRIL’s FPO Rating & Assessment Tools’’ at a workshop on ‘’Contemporary Issues related to FPOs” organized by FWWB, Ahmedabad on 29-30 October 2018. At the same workshop, he was also invited to participate in a panel discussion on ‘’FPO governance and compliances’’.

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In addition to explaining the FPO rating & assessment framework designed by M-CRIL, Ashok shared key findings and issues based on experience of ratings/assessment of 20 FPOs undertaken by M-CRIL, including some of the largest FPOs across India. Amongst several aspects, the presentation recommended the way forward to make FPO ratings as a standardized tool to assess FPOs to help ease their access to loans from commercial banks, development finance banks and NBFCs.  Additionally, the rating and assessment exercise identifies specific areas of weakness that the concerned FPO can focus on to improve its performance.

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