Horticultural Producers' Cooperative Marketing and Processing Society

Overview

abbreviation	HOPCOMS
formation	1965
founder	M. H. Mari Gowda
founding location	Bengaluru
type	Society
status	Functional
purpose	Direct marketing
headquarters	Lalbagh, Bengaluru
location	Bengaluru
coords	12.95°N, 77.59°W
region	Karnataka
products	Farm produces
membership	12,680‡R1R‡
membership year	2014
leader title	Managing Director
leader name	Umesh Mirji‡R2R‡
leader title2	Administrator
leader name2	P. R. Palangappa
leader title3	Chairperson
leader name3	H. K. Nagaveni‡R2R‡
leader title4	Paid up capital
leader name4	₹26.59 million‡R1R‡
board of directors	15
parent organization	Department of Horticulture
revenue	₹958.50 million‡R3R‡
revenue year	2014
website	http://hopcoms.karnataka.gov.in
formerly	Bangalore Grape Growers’ Marketing and Processing Co-operative Society

Horticultural Producers' Cooperative Marketing and Processing Society, popularly known by its acronym, HOPCOMS, is a farmers' society founded in 1965 for the direct marketing of farm produces.[4] The society is headquartered in Lalbagh, Bengaluru, in the south Indian state of Karnataka and its activities are spread in the districts of Bangalore Urban, Bangalore Rural, Kolar, Ramanagar, Mandya, Mysuru and Chikkaballapura.[4]

Overview

The origin of HOPCOMS was in 1959[5] when Mari Gowda, the then director of the department of horticulture, founded the Bangalore Grape Growers’ Marketing and Processing Co-operative Society for promoting grape farming by providing farming know how to the grape farmers and arranging a marketing set up for their products. The society had its operations in Bangalore, Kolar, Mysore, Tumkur, Mandya and Mangalore districts. A few years later, the society started dealing in other farm produces and re-branded itself as the Horticultural Producers’ Co-operative Marketing and Processing Society in 1965, registering itself as a cooperative society.

Activities

The activities of HOPCOMS are threefold; procurement, storage and distribution. It has opened four procurement centres at Sarjapura, Channapatna, Hosakote and Kanakapura where facilities have been arranged for acceptance, weighment and grading of produces. The payment to the farmers are distributed immediately on acceptance of goods. The goods are then transferred to central godown, processing units or retail outlets as per requirement. The society runs 276 retail outlets[7] of which 238 retail outlets in the urban and rural areas of Bengaluru and 19 outlets in Kolar district.

HOPCOMS has fruit processing units which processes Grape, Mango and Orange juices for the retail market.[8] It also has a distribution system for supplying fruits and vegetables to government hospitals such as Victoria Hospital, Leprosorium Hospital, Bowring & Lady Curzon Hospitals, NIMHANS and Kidwai Memorial Institute of Oncology, factories such as Indian Telephone Industries and Hindustan Machine Tools, hostels and clubs and also undertakes supply of produces for social and marriage functions. The total quantity of goods handled by HOPCOMS in a day is around 100 tonnes. It also supplies equipment, manure and consumables to the farmers at reduced rates and has plans to open a walk-in supermarket and 100 modern outlets with funding from the Karnataka Horticultural Federation.[8] The society organizes periodic fruit and vegetable festivals in various places in Karnataka where special stalls are set up for direct selling of produces.[2] HOPCOMs is also associated with other organizations dealing in fruits and vegetables such as National Agricultural Cooperative Marketing Federation of India (NAFED), Himachal Pradesh Horticultural Produce Marketing and Processing Corporation (HPMC), GROWREP, VEFCO and National Dairy Development Board (NDDB).[6]

The society avails financial assistance from government and financial institutions for its developmental activities. It has collected grants from Zilla Parishads and the National Horticultural Board and a loan of ₹44.80 million from the National Cooperative Development Corporation of which ₹21.50 million has been paid back. However, it has been reported that the market presence of HOPCOMS has diminished over the years. The advent of retail outlet chains and reluctance of farmers to supply goods to the society has reportedly reduced the business volume from 34,000 tonnes of fruits and vegetables in 1997–98 to 20,726 tonnes during 2013–14.[7]

Horticultural Producers' Cooperative Marketing and Processing Society

Overview

Objectives

Activities

See also

References