November 29, 2010

Indian firm in talks with Israeli dairy tech suppliers

India's Godrej Agrovet, the agri-business arm of leading conglomerate Godrej, intends to go into the dairy farming business in India after having talks with at least two leading Israeli dairy farm technology providers.

Godrej Agrovet did not comment but representatives of the Israeli companies, Afikim and SCR Engineers, confirmed they were in talks with Godrej.

A representative of the firms said that Godrej was looking to establish a model dairy farm with approximately 200 cows.

The company was not aiming for commercial production of milk but it was more interested in becoming a technology source for providing high-yielding cows and world-class technology. Therefore, the model farm would function as its research and development centre.

Godrej has business interests in animal feed, oil palm plantations, agri-inputs, and poultry. Its animal feed business is the largest in the country with yearly production of 730,000 tonnes of feed and nutrition products.

With 45 manufacturing facilities across India, it has 10,000 rural distributors and 1,900 employees, according to its website.

More corporations are considering commercial dairy farming, against the conventional format of co-operative dairies.

India's largest fertiliser company, Iffco, announced a collaborative venture with Fonterra and Global Dairy Health, both from New Zealand, to set up a mega dairy project for 3,000-5,000 cows in India.

Israel's industry conglomerate, Elbit, has also announced plans, through its Indian subsidiary Elbit India, to establish India's largest dairy farm in Andhra Pradesh.