Ekgaon Consulting Services has been providing Project Management services for setting up and handholding of an unique Agri-Tech Business Incubator under the aegis of Assam Agricultural University (AAU) at its Jorhat Campus in Assam. The AAU Incubator, also popularly known as North East Agricultural Technology Entrepreneurs Hub (NEATeHUB), was established in the year 2018 and caters to the entire North East Region of India. Currently, the NEATeHUB is funded by the Atal Innovation Mission, NITI Aayog, Govt of India and the Department of Agri Cooperation & Farmers Welfare, Govt. of India under its RKVY-RAFTAAR scheme. NEATeHUB is also the Knowledge Partner for establishing and handholding three other Incubators in the North East Region under the Central Agricultural University under the RKVY-RAFTAAR programme viz., College of Horticulture and Agro-Forestry, Pasighat, Arunachal Pradesh; College of Veterinary Sciences, Aizawl, Mizoram and College of Fisheries, Agartala, Tripura. The Incubator’s core sectors of focus are technologies relevant to agriculture and allied agriculture sectors. ECS has been providing value added support in terms of initialisation and stabilisation of the Incubator, design and development of outreach programmes for scouting incubatees/ entrpreneurs, capacity building and enrichment programs for business managers, evaluation and selection of cohorts, structured business incubation programmes for startup entrepreneurs, mentoring services and connect to investors, strategies for raising funds, etc. So far, over 107 entrepreneurs who are at various stages of their entrepreneurial journey, have been provided with diverse incubation services including funding support, mentor networks and market access. For more information, please visit Neatehub

The services of ECS was commissioned by GIZ, New Delhi, in October 2018 for the design and development of e-Learning Modules for Farmer Producer Organisations (FPOs). ECS conducted workshop style brain-storming sessions with relevant stakeholders to compile and create content which will be appropriate to be introduced through an online platform for ease of learning and impact a large number of participants. GIZ New Delhi planned to collaborate with leading stakeholders such as NABARD for creation of this platform. ECS’ experts facilitated the thought process and evolved the various fundamental components which need to be worked upon, in order to create relevant content for the diverse user groups. Novel work tools were employed during the discussion sessions.

Veer Chandra Singh Garhwali Uttarakhand University of Horticulture & Forestry (UUHF) is a premier university in Uttarakhand, which is a State University and is linked with the National Agriculture Research System (NARS) and the Indian Council of Agricultural Research. It focuses on creation of adequately skilled, professional manpower for development of horticulture and forestry - the two major sectors that hold enormous potential for sustainable growth of the economy of Uttarakhand. It is also the most pioneer institute of Agricultural Education, Research and Extension in the field of Horticulture, Forestry, Hill Agriculture, Food Science & Technology and Medicinal and Aromatic Plants in the State. ECS has recently been commissioned to set up a world-class business incubator in the UUHF to assist in setting up necessary infrastructure and processes for running sustainable programs for entrepreneurs and startups. It further aims to scale up on-ground agribusiness activities and develop B-2-B models in production and in-bound and out-bound supply chain, thus facilitatating creation of local employment opportunities in the State/Region aimed at nurturing youth and social and women entrepreneurs through specialized programs.

Training of Trainers for facilitating community mobilisation was conducted for the World Bank funded project implementing agency – APART, Assam – in March 2020. The participants were District level Social Sector Coordinators (DSSC) who were taking the lead to mobilise producers and farmers at the grass roots for implementing the various components of the APART project in select districts of Assam. The DSSCs have had lot of exposure in the social and development sector related works and they needed specific facilitation for understanding the functioning of farmer collectives and producer organisations. Customised sessions were carefully designed and delivered to the DSSCs for enriching their knowledge.

Services of ECS has been commissioned by NABARD Assam R.O., for providing Resource Support Agency (RSA) support to the Producer Organisation Promoting Institutions (POPIs) who are promoting FPOs under NABARD’s support in Assam. ECS has an important role to play in stepping up the capacities of the POPIs who are largely NGOs/ CBOs. These POPIs are being supported by ECS through knowledge enrichment programs, trainings and workshops which help in ground level execution of plans. ECS conducts the following customised broad activities: • Preliminary assessment of POPI’s work • Customise capacity building trainings for the POPI’s functionaries • Knowledge enrichment sessions on business plans and financial management • Tools for monitoring the FPO building work • Interactive sessions between FPOs and lead bankers in the state for credit linkage. • Awareness building programs with Financial institutions on areas requiring improvement for purpose of qualifying for financial support. • Market linkages/ access to markets for Similarly, ECS has been facilitating knowledge enrichment programmes for FPOs promoted by NABARD Meghalaya and NABARD Nagaland. Most of these workshops are held in the field, at the FPOs base in order to customise group activities and immersion sessions, soft skills’ activities, visit to successful farmer collectives in the vicinity and provide practical exposure to agribusiness activities. These interactive sessions are generally held as a part of series, and based on the participants’ progress, the subsequent sessions are designed and course curriculum is upgraded.

It is a known fact that farmers and the farming community are skilled at production related activities, they are not adept at handling the operations of a business enterprise that essentially works as a marketing organisation. Such an organisation requires specific skillsets, training and experience, which is lacking in most of professionals managing these farmer collectives. They need specific skills sets to market their produce, take business decisions collectively, identify business opportunities, prepare business plans, network with experts, government officials, financial management, credit and collateral management, etc. There are more than 100 Farmer Collectives in Assam alone which are into agri- business activities. They need lot of support both at policy level as well as ground interventions to scale up and reach larger markets. In order to facilitate this, ECS has been working with several FPOs in the North East by establishing the ‘North East Federation of FPOs’ – a not-for-profit Society – to federate and consolidate the efforts of these farmer collectives. The objective of NEFPO is to address the above issues and provide a common platform to all affiliated and member-FPOs in Assam and NER for mutual support, technical guidance and handholding for all round development and sustenance in the long run. ECS has embarked on a series of facilitation workshops for the member-FPOs of NEFO and hopes to play a role in being a reference point for policy and implementation of FPO-related initiatives in the North Eastern Region of India.