Rallis out to get farmers' pulse right with crop plan

Rallis India, the crop protection subsidiary of Tata Chemicals, is seeking to reach out to a million or ten lakh farmers in the next few years through its ‘Grow More Pulses’ or MoPu scheme.

The company, experts say, is trying to replicate the success of ‘Rallis Kisan Kutumba’, another scheme which notched up membership of a million farmers last fiscal.

The MoPu scheme currently connects to 1.6 lakh farmers and is spread primarily across the states of Maharashtra, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Madhya Pradesh.
Under the scheme, the Rallis team reaches out to farmers and offers assistance in increasing not only cultivation of various kinds of pulses but their yields.

Rallis runs several other similar programmes such as Rallis Kisan Kutumba and Samruddh Krishi.

Analysts said that the company is now focusing more on growing its non-pesticide portfolio, so MoPu is a major focus area. In the next five years, Rallis should be able to attain its target of reaching out to 1 million farmers, an analyst said.

The company’s current product portfolio consists of 60% pesticides and 40% non-pesticides. Their ratio is expected to reach 50-50 soon.

According to the company’s annual report, the pulses productivity programme has received acclaim from Maharashtra government during a recent World Economic Forum-organised meeting.

V Shankar, MD of Rallis, focused on the growing importance of MoPu and the road ahead during the recent annual general meeting.

He said the scheme has already covered 9 lakh acres and 950 villages, and helped farmers in increasing yields by 2 lakh tonne worth Rs 800 crore.