October 4, 2010

 

BASF to extend Samruddhi scheme to Indian cash crops

German chemicals major BASF is looking at expanding its Samruddhi programme to cash crops after tasting success with soy in India's food crops segment.

 

Samruddhi, started in 2007, is the company's initiative to educate Indian farmers about various crop protection measures.

 

Though the company did not mention which cash crops it will be targeting, Prasad Chandran, chairman and managing director of BASF India, said, "For BASF, Samruddhi represents a way of expanding business activities - moving from a focus mainly on cash crops to crops used in domestic markets and grown by small farmers."

 

He said BASF has already played a major role in the development and expansion of this market. "In India, there is a big opportunity to increase the yield of soy and our goal is of enhancing overall soy productivity, yield of farmers and business of BASF in India," he said.

 

Under the Samruddhi scheme, which comes under its agricultural solutions division, BASF India conducted a pilot project with 30,000 soy farmers in Madhya Pradesh where the company educated farmers in various activities such as fertilisation, seed rates, use of proper crop protection chemicals and agricultural practices.

 

The project boosted company's sale of crop protection products and hence the scheme was expanded to other states as well.

 

"The project covered soy cropped areas spreading across Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, and Uttar Pradesh between 2007 and 2010," said Chandran.

 

During a recent presentation, company officials said BASF gained a 60% annual growth in business due to the Samruddhi scheme. The company's revenue rose from EUR37 million (US$50.9 million) to EUR91 million (US$125.2 million) in crop protection from 2006-2009.

 

BASF had sales of INR13.94 billion (US$315.38 million) in the fiscal year of 2010.

 

"Agricultural solutions segment contributed 35% to the sales of BASF India for the last fiscal," said Chandran.

 

Currently, India has around 9.6 million hectares under soy cultivation and approximately three million farmers in 50,000 villages.

 

BASF India has targets to expand the Samruddhi scheme to 300,000 farmers by 2011, up from 170,000 farmers in 2010. It will also add new practices such as spray support and AgCelene.