The Farmer Producer Company (FPC) is regarded as an institutional innovation, designed
through new governance frameworks for organizing the farmer groups towards better
coordinated farming and marketing. The new governance structures aligning to changes
in globalization, volatile economic conditions and so on are often prone to disruptions
in their performance, value chain activities, and in addressing members’ social and
economic well-being. Consequently, it becomes imperative to systematically document
the resilience exhibited by these new-age cooperative models amid such disruptions.
Furthermore, it is crucial to investigate the extent to which this resilience is shaped by
the social context within the organization and also the influence of the organization’s
dynamic ecosystem, extending beyond the member networks. Social capital, centered
on organizational affiliations and collective action, and ‘Social networks’ mapping the
relational strengths of individuals and organizations in the changing ecosystem thus
become the vital concepts to be explored on FPCs, in understanding their sustainability
and resilience.
In this research work, we examined the effect of social capital on benefits and business
performance at the level of member groups in FPCs. An empirical analysis was conducted
in which two FPCs, which differed significantly in their mobilization strategies, farming
methods, and supply chain linkages, were surveyed. Data collected from the surveys
were visualized and clustering analysis was carried out using Self Organizing Maps
(SOM), an unsupervised Artificial Neural Network (ANN) tool. Insights from clustering
revealed the importance of pre-existing social ties, leadership, participation in group
activities and the geographical affinity of groups in benefits realization and business performance of FPCs.
The importance of bottom-up approaches in establishing robust
supply chain linkages in emerging FPCs was keyed out through this work. The inferences
through SOM, distilled strategies for FPCs’ stakeholders in prioritizing interventions for
member groups and in generating broader implications for policy makers accounting
social capital in new institutional models.

Extending further, comprehensive research was undertaken on calibrating the dynamics
of stakeholders, both internal and external to the FPC ecosystem, lining the concept
of ‘Matthew effect’. Analyzing FPC and its ecosystem by applying the Matthew effect
is primarily backed by network science and power dynamics. Hence a multi-layered
approach with network tools was applied on field data to investigate the Matthew effect,
where cumulative advantages to elites maintain or amplify inequality. The emphasis was
on examining power disparities within networks and the extent of democratic participation
in the two chosen natural farming FPCs. Social Network Analysis (SNA) and two other
visualization approaches, Self- Organizing Maps and Parallel Categories Plots, have
been deployed to analyse the member networks and FPC ecosystems, before and during
the CoVID-19 pandemic. The FPC exhibiting a strong Matthew effect, with higher
preferential attachment and cumulative advantage, also with significant disparities in
access to crucial resources and information, showed lower resilience under uncertainty.
The findings offer valuable insights for the local governance of inclusive food systems
and have global relevance, especially for addressing Sustainable Development Goals
(SDGs) 5 (gender equality) and 10 (reduced inequalities).
The research has broader and specific implications for policy makers in refining the
norms and guidelines, scholars in advancing the theories and methods and for the primary
stakeholders in tapping the tools and interventions derived out of this work.