APEDA (Agricultural and Processed Food Products Export Development Authority) has undertaken a Programme for Agro food cluster for export promotion and had identified potential clusters and products based on the export potential. APEDA is planning to carry out a number of Farmer Connect initiatives in these clusters partnering State Governments, Exporters, Experts, etc., as well through a number of direct interventions. APEDA has developed an online facility to implement an ICT (Information and Communication Technologies) solution in the form of a Portal and Mobile Applications, to bridge this gap between farmers and exporters. This will help enable conversion of under- performing farms into high yielding farms of quality products in demand, by leveraging ICT enabled services.

The main objective of this initiative shall be the facilitation and integration of activities of farmers and Aggregators in the form of Farmer Producer Organizations (FPOs) with Exporters through the assistance of an ICT platform and a Field Coordinator who shall assist the Farmer / FPO to make better use of the opportunities provided by the Exporters and the ICT platform. This platform can also later on establish active enrolment and involvement of agricultural input providers, ware housing facility providers, logistic service support providers, banks and Insurers etc.