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In an effort to strengthen the farm forestry initiative, ITC Paperboards and Speciality Papers Division (PSPD) has developed demonstration plots to showcase various agronomic practices and agroforestry models apart from setting up a soil testing laboratory at its clonal production centre in Bhadrachalam.
The laboratory has been set up to enable farmers get their soil tested free-of-cost. As part of the initiative, ITC-PSPD’s Plantation Department, through its demonstration plots showcases various agronomic practices and agroforestry models to improve farm profitability.
The diversified ITC groups’s large-scale social and farm forestry programme has greened over 2,00,000 hectares and created over 95 million person days of employment for farmers.
“We value our long-standing relationship with farmers that we have built over the years and are making significant efforts in enhancing their income through increasing productivity and being a willing buyer of their produce through direct purchase and cash payment on delivery to the plant,” according to Sanjay Singh, Divisional Chief Executive, ITC-PSPD.
The idea behind the creation of support infrastructure is to help farmers in adoption of good agronomic practices and enable them to get higher yields from the same plot of land and thereby improve their profitability and income.
Farmers are also informed about the suitability of different agriculture crops in the agroforestry system and adoption of agroforestry models and not to go in for mono-cropping.
The soil test reports ensure farmers are able to use the right dosage of fertiliser, which will help them to save on the cost of inputs and facilitate better soil health management thereby leading to higher crop productivity in future.
On the other hand, such initiatives help generate a sustainable source of raw material for the expanding business of ITC Paperboards.
The paper division organises farmers’ meets to sensitise them about soil and plant health, good agronomic practices, soil profile study and soil sample collection methods. The demonstration plots showcase pulpwood tree cultivation.
ITC has been distributing a Farmers’ Handbook on good agronomic practices for pulpwood plantations, soil testing reports and recommended fertilisers.
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