Leader
Anita Deshmukh
Director, Vidarbha FPO Alliance
Anita Deshmukh leads the Vidarbha FPO Alliance, where she has spent eight years helping smallholder cooperatives bypass traditional mandis and sell directly to buyers. Her work spans cold-storage infrastructure, FPO registration, and the slow work of building farmer trust across Maharashtra. She writes candidly on what works, and what doesn’t.
Recent · click a story to read it in full
Inside the Vidarbha FPO Alliance’s First Full Season of Direct Market Linkage
By Anita Deshmukh · 1 August 2026 · 10 min read
Photo: Bernard Gagnon / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0
How 400 Smallholders Bypassed the Mandi and Still Got a Better Price
Anita Deshmukh · 6 min read
Photo: எஸ்ஸார் / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0
Building Cold Storage on a Cooperative Budget: What Actually Worked
Anita Deshmukh · 8 min read
Photo: S. Elaiyaraja / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
What It Takes to Get Farmers to Trust an FPO
Anita Deshmukh · 5 min read
Photo: Bernard Gagnon / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0
The Paperwork Nobody Warns You About When Registering an FPO
Anita Deshmukh · 7 min read
Photo: Biswarup Ganguly / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 3.0
From 40 Members to 2,600: How the Alliance Scaled Without Losing Trust
Anita Deshmukh · 6 min read
Photo: Asian Development Bank / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0
“Why Every FPO Should Start With a Bylaw, Not a WhatsApp Group” — on the first document every new cooperative skips, and regrets skipping.
Anita Deshmukh · 4 min read
Reading a Mandi Price Board: A Short Guide for First-Time Sellers
Anita Deshmukh · 5 min read
Photo: Biswarup Ganguly / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 3.0
Sales
₹4 Cr
Aggregated produce sales this season
Photo: Ravi Dwivedi / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
Why Direct Buyers Still Lowball Small Cooperatives — and How to Negotiate Back
Anita Deshmukh · 6 min read
Photo: McKay Savage / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0
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