Performance analysis of farmer producer companies (FPCs) in Kerala

Abstract

Farmer Producer Companies (FPCs) are institutional innovations that hold tremendous potential in influencing the agricultural value chains by creating economic profit and social value. As such, the standard measures of financial analysis alone cannot provide an overall indication of the performance of these organisations. Therefore, an attempt to use integrated dimensions of socio-economic parameters were pursued in the present study to delineate the factors affecting the performance of FPCs and in the development of a performance index to grade the FPCs. The results of the study also helped in evolving policy recommendations that could improve the performance of FPCs in a sustainable way. The study followed ex-post facto research design conducted among 30 FPCs selected randomly from the 14 districts of Kerala. Proportionate random sampling was employed to ascertain the number of FPCs selected from each district and to identify 120 shareholders. Random and exhaustive sampling was followed respectively in the selection of 60 director board members and 30 CEOs to make the total sample size of 210.