Assessing managerial competency of directors of farmer producer organisation in Tripura

Introduction

Farmer Producer Organizations (FPOs) are essential for the development of the agricultural sector and their involvement and participation are key to improving the lives of farmers. A distinguished committee headed by Y. K. Alagh made suggestions that resulted in the introduction of the FPO concept in India in 2002. FPOs are incorporated under the provision Part-XI-A Chapter-I of the Companies Act, 1956. It is deemed as a private company under Section 581(C) of the Companies Act, 1956 (Cherukuri et. al., 2018) [1] . In 2019, the Government of India introduced a plan to create 10,000 new FPOs in clusters under Central Sector Schemes to benefit farmers by increasing their bargaining power (Press Information Bureau, 2021) [10] . Despite the government's vision for these producer companies, they are observed to be struggling in numerous areas. Knowing managerial competency of the officials will help them to overcome some hurdles. Several research studies have identified a lack of professional management skills among office bearers as a major obstacle for FPOs. Like any other businesses, the FPOs also require technical and managerial expertise to carry on their business operations for making their FPOs sustainable and profitable for all shareholders (Parthiban et al., 2015; Kumar et al., 2022) [9,5] .The selection of CEOs is critical to the success of an FPO and therefore, it should be ensured that a knowledgeable person with a positive attitude is selected as CEOs (Chintala, 2022) [2] . Esham & Usmi (2007) [3] mentioned lack of managerial and entrepreneurial skills due to poor recruitment of management staff and lack of sound plans and poor management by incompetent board of directors without professional advice. Pandian and Ganesan (2020) [8] found out in their studies that managerial factor is the second most influential factor for the success of the farmers producer company. Roy et al., (2022) [11] mentioned the skill deficit of Directors of FPCs in various field like FPC management skills, financial management skills, business skills, marketing skills, soft skills for FPC's organizational development and skills on digital technology. Assessing the competency of office bearers in managing www.extensionjournal.com FPOs is essential for the long-term success of such organizations. Taking these into consideration, the study was conducted in Tripura to asses the managerial competency of the directors of the FPOs.

Materials and Methods

The study was conducted in Tripura during the year 2023-24. A total number of 5 actively working FPOs which are at least three years old and having more than 500 members were purposively selected. The selected FPOs were Satadol Fish Farmers Producer Company Limited, Bagma Agri Producer Company Limited, Chauddadevta Organic Producer Company Limited, Chokreng Organic Farmers Producer Company Limited and Hillstop Horti Producer Company Limited. A sample of 20 officials which included 15 Director (3 directors from each FPOs) and 5 CEOs (1 CEOs from each FPOs) were selected randomly from the above 5 FPOs. According to Kumari et al., (2023) [6] competency is the ability to apply the knowledge and skill in completing a task successfully. Information was collected through personal interviews using specially developed interview schedule. The 5-Dimensional Managerial Competency Battery (5D-MCB) developed by Mukherjee in 2018 [7] , was used to measure managerial competency.

Results and Discussion

The results obtained using 5-Dimensional Managerial Competency Battery (5D-MCB) of the office bearers of the Farmer Producer Organisations are discussed below through Table 1. Eighteen traits of a competent manager were studied in line with Mukherjee (2018) [7] . These 18 traits were then combined into five competency dimensions viz., (1)

Managerial competency-based classification of office bearers

The office bearers were divided into three categories as indicated in Table 2 based on their 5D-MCB index scores such as: 1. Novice (managers who were new to their positions and lacked experience) 2. Efficient (managers who had a specified experience to their occupation) and 3. Expert (Very knowledgeable and skilful manager). As observed from Table 2, it was found that a majority (55%) of the officials were novice, about 25 percent were efficient while only 20 percent of them were experts.

Conclusion

This study could reveal the managerial competency of the office bearers of five Farmer Producer Organisations of www.extensionjournal.com

Tripura. The findings have significance for institutions focusing on the development of key managerial competences among boards of directors for effective management of FPOs, including policy makers, trainers and FPOs. Therefore, it is essential to create training materials and marketing plans to educate, empower, and professionalise office bearers of FPOs. These findings will help to formulate appropriate strategy according to the perception level of office bearers that would satisfy the performance of FPOs and thereby, fostering greater interest and needs toward farmer producer organisations. The other factors also need to be identified and addressed to facilitate the high performance of FPOs.

References

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