JICA to help Himachal farmers sell produce online

Hamirpur, February 14

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The government has announced that the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) will help the state’s farmers sell their produce through e-commerce.

Himachal Director of Agriculture Kumud Singh, while addressing a meeting of stakeholders here, said that this would not only help the farmers get the best prices for their produce, but also help them set the price.

Starting from Hamirpur district, the JICA has been working on Himachal Pradesh Crop Diversification Project (HPCDP) for a decade and has helped many farmers in improving their economic position in that area. The JICA is now supporting farmers in Una, Bilaspur, Kangra and Mandi districts.

Kumud Singh said that JICA had collaborated with an e-commerce digital platform, DeHaat, to help farmers in all ways, including procurement of seed, improving produce quality and selling it. He added that DeHaat was a start-up in the agri-tech sector and one of the companies providing end-to-end solutions and services to farmers in India.

Dr Sunil Chauhan said that the project to use an e-commerce platform for helping farmers was approved by the JICA headquarters in Tokyo. He added that the JICA had approved over Rs 1.5 crore for the project.

He said that DeHaat was operating in 12 states and had an extensive network of over 11,000 DeHaat centres.

Rajeshwar Thakur, media adviser of the JICA, said that farmers in the state did not get the best prices for their produce such as potato, broccoli, cauliflower, peas, apple, guava, mango, etc.

He said that farmers would get better prices by selling their products through the online mode.