A government-backed rural development initiative partnered with private and CSR stakeholders to digitally empower farmers and Self-Help Groups (SHGs) with end-to-end market access, advisory services, and business opportunities.
The challenge
How can rural farmers and SHGs overcome fragmented support systems and limited market access?
Despite significant efforts across the public and private sectors, rural producers, especially farmers and Self-Help Groups (SHGs), continued to face systemic hurdles. These included disconnected advisory services, weak formal market integration, limited digital enablement, and constrained credit access. As a result, productivity remained low and economic participation limited. The central challenge was to converge fragmented efforts into a scalable, cohesive model that could unlock inclusive rural growth.
How we helped
Scaling inclusive development through ecosystem-led partnerships
Grant Thornton Bharat collaborated with the government and broad network of private sector partners to design and implement PPP models across the agriculture and rural value chain. We enabled the mobilisation of CSR capital to support FPO-led initiatives and delivered integrated services in input facilitation, crop and policy advisory, credit linkage, and market access. For SHGs, we helped establish both offline and digital commerce platforms, onboarded producers to open digital commerce systems, and aligned product marketing with national initiatives such as “One District One Product” and “Make in India.”
The results
Stronger linkages, scalable impact, and self-reliant communities
Our efforts led to increased formal market integration, especially for women-led SHGs, who gained access to digital commerce networks and large-scale trade events. Farmers saw a measurable boost in productivity and input access, as well as direct connections to buyers. The initiative validated the power of multi-stakeholder convergence to drive rural transformation at scale, fostering resilient, self-reliant rural communities and inclusive economic progress.
About our team
