January 28, 2008

Nandani Co-op Signs MOU with Radhakrishna Foodland

ACDI/VOCA’s Growth-oriented Microenterprise Development Program (GMED) helped broker the signing of a memorandum of understanding (MOU) in India between Radhakrishna Foodland, a major food exporter and retailer, and the Nandani Fruit and Vegetable Growers’ Cooperative Society on January 23. The MOU is a landmark agreement that will connect the large Indian food retailer—India’s equivalent of Wal-Mart—with smallholder farmers.

Under the partnership, the Nandani Cooperative’s 5,400 smallholder farmer co-op members will sell fresh fruits and vegetables to Foodland. This market supply chain linkage will increase the members’ profits and ensure a reliable supply of high-quality fresh produce to Foodland. The supply chain will be managed with the help of Infosys, an information technology services provider that developed software to manage the flow of goods between the retailer and the co-op.

“The aim of the project is to bring small-scale farmers into the retail supply chain. This is a pilot project, and we want it to be sustainable so that when our program ends in September 2008, it will run without us,” GMED Chief of Party Don Taylor said.

Nandani plans to contact other big retailers as well in order to increase opportunities for its members. In addition to brokering partnerships, the GMED Program has been working with the cooperative to improve productivity and quality to enable members to satisfy domestic and export market requirements.

For more information on GMED’s relationship with the Nandani Cooperative, click here.

For more information on ACDI/VOCA’s work in India, click here.