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Faced with water scarcity and escalating input costs, farmers in Gujarat are increasingly looking at alternative methods of cultivation for sustainable farming. At Gujarat’s Shirola village in Dabhoi taluka of Vadodara district, farmers are learning how to make judicious use of resources such as water, agro-chemicals and fertilisers.
Right mix of technology and farm inputs can increase yield by up to 25-30 per cent for cotton crop, maintained experts from Swiss seeds and crop protection major Syngenta. “We train farmers on a complete package of agronomy and crop solutions. The intervention results in a yield growth of about 25-30 per cent as compared to the conventional farmer practice,” Bipin Solanki, Managing Director, Syngenta India, told BusinessLine . The company plans to train about 100,000 farmers in one year.
The company has started setting up Syngenta Learning Centres (SLCs) on a small plot of around 0.5 hectares towards educating growers about Syngenta’s technologies and solutions. Four such SLCs are operational in Gujarat – one each in the districts of Rajkot, Ahmedabad, Sabarkantha and Vadodara.
“This technology and intervention is much useful for vegetable crops. It not only saves water but also reduces the use of agro-chemicals. Even as our costs go up by ₹1,500-2,000 per acre, this technology is still profitable because the yield growth is much higher at around 20 per cent,” said Dipesh Chaudhary, a vegetable farmer from Vyara in Tapi district of south Gujarat.
At these SLCs, Syngenta provides visual, real-world demonstrations of the benefits of its protocol, a step-wise closely-monitored method of cultivation. It helps farmers deal with challenges such as inadequate irrigation, poor germination followed by weak seedlings, pest and disease attack, improper agronomic practices, inappropriate nutrient management and abiotic stress management which reduce productivity and return on investment of the crop.
“We advise growers on proper water management, timely irrigation, judicious use of fertilisers, using right micronutrients and technology for best yield,” said Solanki.
The company spends about ₹70 crore annually on the R&D facility at Aurangabad in Maharashtra.
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