The Hindu Business Line : `Supply chain management' project

THE Tamil Nadu Agricultural University- Horticulture Department has, with financial support from the Michigan State University, tied-up for a project on `supply chain management'.

The $4.5-lakh scheme would strive for a market-driven production system.

The TNAU-Horticulture Department Dean, Dr E. Vadivel, told Business Line that the department has identified and proposed two sites at Udhagamandalam and Cumbum Valley in Theni district for development under this project.

"The soil in these belts is relatively unaffected. We have put forth our suggestion at the preliminary discussion in March this year. Based on the discussion, a business meeting is slated for May 19, after which the commercial implementation of the programme is expected to start."

The efforts are aimed at sensitising the farmers about the emerging challenge — clean production of safe food, meaning zero microbial and toxic load to facilitate export, not organic cultivation, he said and added that international buyers would be linked to the envisaged production system.

Apart from clean production, the university would also demonstrate to the farmers the possibility of production round the year, net housing, uniformity and wholesomeness of the produce.

"The Michigan University expertise is being passed on to us and we in turn are transferring the technology to the farmers. The production area is to be linked to the market," he said and added that the task of the TNAU scientists was in `Indianising' the project.

Reverting to yet another development, Dr Vadivel said: "We now have in place a system called `farmers corporate'. At present, there are 27 such corporates functioning in the State. Each of these strive to bring to the market adequate quantity, quality, uniformity and timely delivery (four virtues of any corporate) of the farm produce," he said and indicated that the department was planning to rope in more such farmers corporate during the current year. "We want to have at least 50 such farmers corporates throughout the State," he said.

To a query on the purpose of forming such corporates, he said, "The farmers by and large have small holding and the farm produce, when pooled, is invariably not uniform in quality. Arrival of the same produce in the market place is not adequate to meet the demand and farmers miss out on the time factor apart from other inherent issues. Corporate farming is aimed at plugging such gaps in the system. We have not however gone for hi-tech practices. We have taught the farmers only the traditional cultivation methods, but in an organised manner."

Keeping the virtues of the `corporate' in mind, the horticulture department commenced work with the cultivation of tomato in Dharapuram belt, drumstick in Periakulam and bitter gourd in Cheranmadevi. Each farmer with a holding of just an acre or two, and willing to participate in the scheme was supplied with the inputs from the university at subsidised rates. About 100 to 120 farmers from the villages in and around that region joined hands and made it a successful proposition, Dr Vadivel said.

A visit to the neighbouring town of Dharapuram revealed that the growers were immensely happy to take the advise from the farm varsity.

Mr S. Rajendran, a farmer in Rudravathy village told this correspondent that most of the farmers had been cultivating tomato for over two decades now, but had not been able to get a double-digit yield.

"With the PKM-1 (the variety supplied by TNAU), and other input advise, we have managed to get 10 to 12 tonnes per acre. We could bring to the market close to 150 tonnes of tomatoes every day, and the returns were also reasonable."

The price of the tomato had shot up to Rs 7 kg in the last three days, he said and pointed out that the growers off-loaded the produce in the Palladam and Kundadam markets when there were excess quantities. The growers groups hinted that the Government should continue to extend subsidy on inputs at least for some more time, apart from ensuring the quality of the seeds supplied.

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