PM lauds Venkateswara Co-op for empowering locals in Mann Ki Baat

In his Sunday broadcast of Mann Ki Baat on May 28, Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi once again named a co-operative and lauded its role in uplifting the poor. Modi was referring to Nashik based Venkateswara Cooperative Farm.

The Prime Minister said “Venkateswara Cooperative Farm is a unique effort by Shri Shivaji Shamrao Agoye towards strengthening the cooperative movement and empowering local communities. This is a perfect realization of the concept of Jai Jawan, Jai Kisan.”

It bears recall that this co-operative was set up by a team of ex-servicemen & farmers coming together with a vision of “Sahakar se Samridhi” (Prosperity from Cooperation) to make Agro a viable and profitable enterprise.

Belonging to a village of Nashik, Shivaji Dole founded this co-op in a new avatar. He comes from a tribal farmer family and has served in Army earlier. Soon after his retirement, he focussed on agriculture and formed a team of 20 people including some ex-servicemen. He revived a defunct a co-operative organisation named Venkateshwara Co-Operative Power and Agro Processing Limited.

“A new way of cooperative farming has been put before the country. As a result, important work has been done to execute a new dimension of the development of Agro farming through co-operative. In the coming days, this Venkateswara Cooperative will create its special place in the Indian Agro market and foreign too with its Agro Products”, claimed the Founder Chairman Shivaji Dole in its website.

The group has experimented with a successful Agro-cooperative venture by bringing ex-serviceman farmers together by implementing cost-effective organic farming in new innovative ways and also by using new techniques of extracting better production from the land with the best technology, says the Chairman.

Venkateshwara Cooperative carries end to end activity of Agro Produce, processing, marketing & exporting the products on the basis of co-operative principles. Currently, its area of operation is in two states Maharashtra & Karnataka and it has a membership of over 20000 farmers and others, engaged in different kinds of Agro & allied activity.

Venkateswara Cooperative Farm’s own Agro Farming work is spread over 528 acres of leased land at Ajang-Vadel, Malegaon, Nashik was taken from Maharashtra State Farming Corporation Ltd. Founded in 2019, the team at Venkateshwara Agro aims to make farming a lot more practical for members, especially those who depend on the success of their agricultural activities.

“We aim to transform the way agriculture is being managed and to put our farmers at ease about their farm’s production levels. Our technology was developed based on real time data points collected from other productions”, says Shivaji Dole Founder and Chairman, as claimed in its website.

Promoting Best Agro Practices is also on its agenda, claims the Chairman. Undertaking research activities in agricultural products and produce, Facilitating, coordinating and promoting agricultural and horticultural activities are undertaken here.

Earlier, in Mann Ki Baat, another co-operative product which caught PM Modi’s attention was IFFCO’s Nano Urea, which he called as a game changer and an example of the Sahakar Se Samriddhi experiment.

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