Escorts enters contract farming in Punjab

Thursday, 10 April 2003, 19:30 IST
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NEW DELHI: Escorts Ltd, a $500 million turnover conglomerate, decided to join a group of corporates undertaking contract farming, with the signing of a agreement with Punjab Agro Industries Corporation (PAIC). Under the terms of the memorandum of understanding signed Wednesday by Escorts Chairman Rajan Nanda, the company will develop a business plan with state-owned PAIC to facilitate contract farming for long-grained aromatic basmati rice and durum wheat in Ludhiana, Moga, Sangrur, Muktsar, Faridkot and Bhatinda districts of Punjab over 50,000 acres of farm land. "The company will provide all the inputs including seeds, pesticides, fertiliser, appropriate agriculture equipment and other services to help farmers diversify and grow quality produce, primarily basmati rice, durum wheat and oil seeds," Nanda told reporters. Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh has set a target of helping farmers in 300,000 acres of land to diversify from the traditional grain cultivation with the help of contract farming. Taking advantage of this, several corporates and multinationals like PepsiCo, Rallis, Mahindra & Mahindra have taken up contract farming in the state. Tractor manufacturing major Escorts will also work on the business plan drawn up with PAIC to set up grain handling and storage facilities like conveyor belts and silos. "We will help farmers in the post-harvest handling like processing, grading and storage without any manual handling. In addition, we plan to act as facilitators to help farmers find better markets for their produce," a company spokesperson said. Escorts has earmarked 1 billion for contract farming and creating post-harvest infrastructure in Punjab and other states over the next three years. "Punjab is moving from agriculture to agribusiness and we are proud to make a signal contribution in this direction," said Nanda.
Source: IANS
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