What is the Operation Green Scheme?

Operation Green Yojana: Boosting India’s Agriculture and Ensuring Price Stability

The Indian agriculture sector is the backbone of the country, providing food to over a billion people and supporting the livelihoods of millions. To strengthen the sector and ensure fair income for farmers, the government launched the Operation Green Yojana in 2018. Originally focused on tomato, onion and potato (TOP) crops, it was later expanded to include a wide range of perishable fruits and vegetables. This blog explores the objectives, benefits, and impacts of Operation Green Yojana on India’s agricultural landscape.

What is Operation Green Yojana?

• Operation Green is a central government initiative launched under the Ministry of Food Processing Industries (MoFPI). The scheme was launched with the goal of addressing price fluctuations and supply chain challenges faced by farmers with perishable products. Its primary objective is to stabilize the supply and prices of perishable agricultural commodities, reduce post-harvest losses, and ensure that farmers receive a fair price for their crops.
• Initially, the scheme focused on staple crops—tomatoes, onions, and potatoes—as these are key commodities that fluctuate a lot in 0
• price. However, in 2020, the scheme was expanded to cover 41 more fruits and vegetables under the Atmanirbhar Bharat Abhiyan, making the benefits more inclusive.

Objectives of Operation Green Scheme

Operation Green Scheme has several main objectives that aim to strengthen India’s agriculture sector:

• Price stability: To control price volatility of perishable commodities, ensuring that farmers receive fair remuneration.
• Increasing farmer’s income: By reducing post-harvest losses and ensuring timely market access, farmers can maximize their income.
• Efficient supply chain development: To establish a seamless supply chain from farm to market, reducing inefficiencies.
• Promoting food processing: To encourage food processing and value addition to increase shelf life and diversify product offerings.
• Reducing wastage: Introducing better storage and transportation facilities to reduce losses in transit and storage.

Components of Operation Green Scheme

• Short-term price stabilization measures: This includes transportation subsidies and grants for storage facilities to prevent distress sales when there is excess production in the market.
• Long-term development projects: Creating robust infrastructure such as cold chains, warehouses, and processing facilities that benefit farmers by linking them more efficiently to end markets.

Under these components, the government has allocated funds to address immediate challenges and support long-term sustainable solutions.

Key Features and Benefits of Operation Green Scheme

1. Subsidy for Storage and Transportation

• This scheme provides subsidy to farmers for transportation and storage of perishable crops. This helps farmers avoid distress sales and reduce losses due to inadequate storage options.
• For example, farmers can avail subsidy of up to 50% on the cost of transporting eligible produce from surplus to deficit markets. Additionally, storage subsidy is provided for setting up or renting cold storage facilities to maintain the quality of perishable commodities.

2. Support for Food Processing and Value Addition

• By promoting food processing, Operation Green helps farmers to add value to their produce, increase shelf life and reduce dependence on seasonal demand. Farmers and businesses in the food processing sector are encouraged to set up processing units, thereby increasing market potential for various products.

3. Market Intelligence and Price Monitoring

• The scheme includes measures for real-time price monitoring and market intelligence to prevent price spikes and crashes that can harm both farmers and consumers. Through this mechanism, the government can respond promptly to price fluctuations by releasing stocks or providing subsidies to stabilize prices.

4. Capacity building and skills development

• Operation Green also provides resources for training and education to farmers, cooperatives, and entrepreneurs on better agricultural practices, storage techniques, and efficient marketing strategies. This capacity building helps create a more self-reliant and knowledgeable farming community.

     Expanded scope of Operation Green: 41 additional crops

• In 2020, the scheme expanded its benefits beyond the top crops to include 41 additional fruits and vegetables. This was part of the government’s initiative to create an Aatmanirbhar Bharat, making it more inclusive and beneficial to a greater number of farmers.
• Some of the newly added crops include apples, bananas, guavas, mangoes, carrots, cauliflower, and turmeric, all of which are perishable and face similar problems of price fluctuations. The inclusion of these crops substantially increased the impact of the scheme, benefiting more farmers through subsidies for infrastructure and support for market stability.

Implementation of Operation Green Investment and Financing

• The government has allocated substantial funds to support the Operation Green scheme. The scheme was initially funded with an allocation of ₹500 crore. Over time, with the addition of additional crops, additional funds and resources have been mobilized. The government has also engaged in public-private partnerships (PPPs) to leverage private sector expertise in logistics, cold storage and market linkages.
• The scheme is implemented by multiple agencies including FPOs (farmer producer organizations), cooperatives and state agriculture departments. These agencies coordinate with farmers to ensure smooth execution of subsidies, market intelligence and capacity building activities.

Impact of Operation Green Scheme on Farmers and Agriculture Sector

Since its inception, Operation Green has brought about meaningful changes in the agriculture sector. Some of the notable impacts include:

1. Reduced price volatility: Price stabilization measures have helped farmers avoid distress sales and ensured fair prices during periods of surplus.
2. Improved storage and processing infrastructure: The creation of cold storages, warehouses and processing units has reduced post-harvest losses, directly benefiting farmers in maintaining the quality of their produce.
3. Increased farmer income: Reduction in losses and improved market access have collectively helped increase farmer’ s income.
4. Boosting agri-innovation: The scheme has encouraged agri-tech innovation, especially in areas such as real-time price monitoring, cold storage technology and farm-to-market logistics.

Operation Green Scheme challenges

While Operation Green has shown promise, it faces challenges that impact its full potential:

1. Logistic bottlenecks: Even with subsidies, the lack of an organized logistics sector for perishable goods in India can lead to delays and losses.
2. Awareness among farmers: Many farmers, especially in remote areas, may not be fully aware of the scheme’s benefits and how to avail them.
3. Infrastructure gap: While infrastructure improvements are underway, rural India still faces significant shortages in storage and transportation facilities.
4. Seasonal dependency: The effectiveness of the scheme depends on seasonality, as peak seasons for crops and other perishable commodities can vary significantly.

Future of Operation Green

• To enhance the impact of Operation Green, the government is focusing on raising farmers’ awareness and enhancing rural infrastructure. With the use of digital platforms and technology-enabled monitoring systems, the scheme is likely to become more efficient and inclusive, covering even more perishable commodities in the future.
• Discussions are also underway to collaborate with agri-tech startups, aiming to bring digital innovations ranging from precision farming techniques to digital marketplaces that benefit both farmers and consumers.

Conclusion: Operation Green – A step towards agricultural prosperity

• The Operation Green scheme has emerged as a key tool in stabilizing India’s agriculture sector, focusing on providing long-term stability for farmers while ensuring consistent prices for consumers. With government support, advanced infrastructure and better market access, this scheme has a huge potential to transform India’s agricultural landscape.
• Whether you are a farmer, an entrepreneur or a policy maker, understanding and leveraging the benefits of Operation Green can contribute to making the agriculture sector in India more resilient and prosperous.

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