Ambuja Foundation facilitated Farmer Producer Company from Bathinda, Punjab was awarded the Best FPO Award of the region during the State Credit Seminar 2023-24 in Chandigarh recently. At the same event, Ambuja Foundation facilitated SHG Guru Tegh Bahadur was also awarded the Best SHG Award.
NABARD has been ACF's longest and largest partner with over 35 projects being implemented by Ambuja Foundation since 2008. Projects supported by NABARD include livelihoods (both agro-based and skill) women empowerment, water resource management and education. Ambuja Foundation facilitated FPOs and SHGs have been frequent winners of the award by NABARD.
Through Farmer Producer Companies, Ambuja Foundation helps encourage farmers to form groups and market their produce collectively. This helps farmers to avoid middlemen and earn more profits from their produce. Ambuja Foundation invests in training farmers on latest technologies, practices and environmentally friendly farming methods – also supporting FPOs to provide farming equipment and machinery to farmers on rent. Some FPOs have also gone ahead and registered as a business to value add and sell their products.
Having realized that women have better saving capacity than men, Ambuja Foundation encourages women to join Self-Help Groups, to instil a habit of saving and credit to support themselves and their families. The Guru Tegh Bahadur SHG had started their own business of reviving traditional handicrafts by making and selling them in the local markets and exhibitions. Ambuja Foundation provided hand holding support to such groups who want to start their own business - providing training in business plans, regular recovery and record keeping and transparency in group operations.
Ambuja Foundation believes in the power of forming People's institutions (like FPOs and SHGs), as true community development and prosperity comes only if people are empowered to play a role in helping themselves. In this process, people become responsible in taking care of their own structures or facilities, inculcate various habits like savings, and become active in making community decisions – all contributing to the sustainability of community projects. Apart from Farmer Producer Companies and Self-Help Groups, Ambuja Foundation helps form Women's Federations, Water Users Associations, Village Health Functionaries, Watershed Development Committees and School Management Committees.
