India’s FPO Push Needs a Centralised Data Spine
Turning farm-based enterprises into engines of economic growth requires moving beyond grants to systems, starting with a national registry
Ankur Kathuria: Partner, Intellecap Advisory Services Private Limited
Sharlo Zack: Senior Associate, Intellecap Advisory Services Private Limited
SDG 2: Zero Hunger | SDG 8: Decent Work and Economic Growth | SDG 9: Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure
Ministry of Agriculture & Farmers Welfare | Ministry of Finance | Ministry of Corporate Affairs
The chapter on Agriculture & Allied Sectors in the Economic Survey 2025–26 places renewed emphasis on Farmer-Producer Organisations (FPOs) as instruments for improving farmer incomes, strengthening value chains, and crowding in private investment. This focus on farm-based enterprises is well-placed. Yet one binding constraint remains largely unaddressed: the persistent inability of most FPOs to access timely and affordable institutional credit at scale.
Despite sustained public investment and policy backing, FPOs continue to face high entry barriers in formal finance. The problem is not the absence of lending schemes, but the absence of reliable, standardised, and easily verifiable data that allows lenders to assess FPOs at low transaction cost. As the Survey itself notes, improving agricultural productivity and diversification will require stronger aggregation and risk-sharing institutions. Credit is central to that transition, but today’s FPO ecosystem is structurally credit opaque.
The Data Gap Behind FPO Credit Constraints
At present, financial institutions attempting to lend to FPOs face a fragmented information landscape. Some financial and governance data are available through filings with the Ministry of Corporate Affairs, but these are often incomplete or outdated – over 40 percent of FPOs had not updated their financials by end-2023. More critically, non-financial information that matters for credit appraisal – business operations, commodity exposure, infrastructure, governance quality, market linkages, and regulatory compliance – remains scattered, largely offline, or entirely unavailable. Even at a portfolio level, credit bureaus do not maintain a distinct identifier for FPOs within their databases, creating a major friction point in analysing FPO performance as a separate asset class.
This data deficit raises transaction costs for lenders and pushes FPO lending into relationship-based, bespoke models that only a few specialised institutions can sustain. The result is a paradox: a policy-priority institution that remains invisible to much of the financial system.
A Centralised FPO Registry as Agricultural Digital Infrastructure
To align the Survey’s ambitions with implementation reality, India needs to treat FPO data as core agricultural digital infrastructure. A Centralised FPO Registry would directly address the visibility and verifiability gap that constrains credit flows.
Such a registry should go beyond basic statutory filings. It would consolidate verified financial data with structured non-financial indicators – governance practices, operational scale, market participation, infrastructure access, and compliance status – creating a holistic, lender-usable profile for every registered FPO. Crucially, each FPO should be assigned a unique FPO ID to provide a stable digital identity across government schemes, financial platforms, and service providers.
Establishing a common identifier for FPOs (such as FPO ID) would significantly improve visibility, risk assessment, and portfolio-level analysis of FPO finance for credit bureaus too. This is consistent with the Registration Identity Code envisaged in the Draft National FPO Policy.
Federal Design, Local Verification
Institutional design matters. The registry should be anchored in the Ministry of Agriculture & Farmers Welfare, but implemented through a federal architecture. State agriculture departments and district-level authorities are best placed to digitise, verify, and periodically update FPO data, ensuring that the registry reflects local agricultural realities rather than becoming a static national database.
Over time, this data backbone can support the creation of an FPO Benchmarking Index (FPO rating stack) – transforming raw information into actionable signals on governance quality, financial health, and operational strength. For lenders, this would enable faster screening and risk differentiation; for FPOs, it would create incentives for formalisation and performance improvement.
From Registry to “FPO DigiLocker”
The Economic Survey highlights the importance of reducing compliance burdens and improving ease of access to formal systems. The registry can operationalise this by evolving into an “FPO DigiLocker”. Today, public financial institutions often require more than 30 documents to process an FPO loan. With a unique FPO ID, statutory documents – PAN, GST, Board and CEO KYC, MOA, AOA, fertiliser licences – can be securely fetched from government databases and stored once, then shared with lenders through consent-based access.
Interoperability is essential. The registry must integrate seamlessly with digital public platforms such as the Unified Lending Interface and JanSamarth, allowing FPOs to move from identification to credit application without repeated data submission.
Why This Matters for the Survey’s Reform Agenda
The Economic Survey rightly frames agriculture’s next phase as one requiring institutional depth rather than just fiscal outlays. A centralised FPO Registry fits squarely within this logic. It leverages existing public investment, lowers private transaction costs, and strengthens accountability – at a fraction of the cost of ongoing grant-based support.
If India is serious about building competitive farm based enterprises, then making FPOs visible to finance is non-negotiable. The Survey sets the direction. A centralised FPO Registry provides the missing implementation bridge.
Author:
Ankur Kathuria and Sharlo Zack gratefully acknowledge the valuable insights and support of Amit Arora in shaping this piece. Views are personal.