Global Agriculture Giants Formed Alliance For Marginal Farmers’- A Mutually Beneficial Trade
Agriculture is still a mass employer in India. Some 80 per cent of the Indian population that is engaged in farming activities do not have more than two acres of land. This is a serious concern that Indian government is facing but the condition is not limited to India, FAO had already pointed out the same issue in its previous years’ annual agriculture estimate release along with OECD. This situation also hampers the prospects of agriculture industries like crop sciences, fertilisers and irrigation management because it is difficult to handle such small land masses for input management. This leads the agriculture companies to stay away, of what could be the largest potential market of the world.
As deteriorating land mass sizes are the major concern of Asia as well as Africa, the global agriculture giants have formed an alliance to tackle this issue on their own. On 20th of April 2018, Bayer, International Finance Corporation (World Bank’s private financing arm), Global Irrigation giant Netafim along with other major groups have formed Better Life Farming alliance. As expected, India attracted their immediate attention and their first project kicked off at Indian Prime Ministers’ constituency, Varanasi.
It is not a CSR activity, we don’t give any subsidy to farmers replied Peter R Mueller, Bayer’s Crop Science Head for South Asia on a question asked by BW Businessworld. Peter added that ‘to establish proof of the concept we had to choose a difficult terrain’. Some 20 farmers from 20 villages according to the alliance had received the best advice and best agriculture practices with the latest technologies. The result was desired and as per the record of the alliance in the green chili segment, the farmers have touched 15 metric tonnes per acre yields which is more than the national average of the same commodity in India.
“We have definitely recommended to use products of our alliance partners but farmers are free to use substitutes,” replies Sanjiv Kanwar, Senior VP of Yara Fertilisers, another regional alliance partner. It is, of course, an area with huge potential and it is no harm to get mutually benefited, continues Sanjiv. It was started with 250 farmers’ and now the number has gone up to 1500, in fact, we have also exported the material to the middle-east and few east Asian nations, said Shashank Kumar, Founder of DeHaat, the output handler of produce.
The region is not deprived of irrigation facilities then what is Netafim doing, asked BW Businessworld. Answering to this question Randhir Chauhan, MD of Netafim India said, “Wastage of water is a major concern and our technology support has enabled the farmers to use right quantity of irrigation that helps to minimise wastage and increase yields by up to 25 per cent”. It is not about irrigation it is about smart irrigation informed Randhir.
As there is no subsidy involved in the project, it was definitely curious to ask as to why IFC is partnering? Replying to the question of BW Businessworld, Rick Vander, Senior Operations Officer of IFC, Asia & Pacific said, “it is about food security and our learning for sure. India has such vast agricultural zones that we can learn and help improve many other regions in Africa and other parts of the world”.
The alliance is trying to expand its project towards other eastern parts of India and after Chili and Tomato also trying to cover Corn production with the help of this unique project. The way it has increased the productivity and income of farmers, it may well become a win-win trade for alliance partners and small and marginal farmers.
