IFFCO’s digital push a boon for farmers

With the Indian Farmer Fertiliser Cooperative (IFFCO) going for a major online distribution push, farmers can now place orders for agricultural biologicals over phone or at the click of a mouse.

“As part of our 50th anniversary celebrations, culminating on November 3, we have launched a major digital initiative. Farmers who want to buy our biologicals, such as biostimulants, biofertilisers and biopesticides, can use this platform to get them delivered at their doorsteps,” IFFCO Managing Director, US Awasthi, told BusinessLine .

IFFCO, which is in the process of finalising courier companies in different States, will not charge delivery charges if the order placed is up to 5 kg, he said.

Called India Cooperative Digital Platform, this would also be used for procuring produce from farmers. So far, 1.78-crore farmers across the country have signed up. They can use this as an e-commerce site, said Awasthi.

Major campaigns Since November 3 last year, digital platform has been one of the major campaigns that IFFCO undertook after it kicked off a series of meetings with farmers across the country. Awasthi has already had over 100 meetings with farmers across the country so far, and also plans to hold at least 25 more in time for the 50th anniversary of IFFCO, which was formed by over 36,000 farmer cooperatives in the country.

“This is an experiment. But this picks up momentum and becomes a movement, the potential is enormous,” said Awasthi.

One of the major decisions taken by IFFCO – the biggest Indian fertiliser company with 25 per cent market share – is that it would be no more capacity addition in chemical fertilisers. Instead, it would be focusing more on agricultural biologicals.

In the long-run, the target is to have a revenue split of 50:50 from chemical products and biologicals, said Awasthi.

IFFCO, he said, was putting in a lot of money in research, particularly in new frontier areas of plant nutrition and plant protection.

“A couple of years ago, we roped in the Forest Research Institute (FRI), Dehradun, to do research on neem. What we wanted was to reduce the number of years that neem takes to fruit. Currently, it takes about 10 years and farmers do not find it economically viable to go for neem cultivation. FRI, which has developed varieties that take just half the duration, has promised us that they will be able to provide the varieties for mass cultivation by 2018 or 2019,” the IFFCO MD said.

Development of neem This development would boost IFFCO’s plan to develop neem as an economically viable crop for farmers. With the government recently deciding to allow the sale of only neem-coated urea under the subsidy scheme, the need for neem oil has shot up in the country.

Some reports even questioned how fertiliser companies in the country could actually meet the demand for neem oil when it was in short supply.

“We have been promoting neem cultivation in a major way. Last year, we planted 13-lakh neem trees, the number which doubled to 26-lakh this year,” said Awasthi. The availability of new variety from FRI would work wonders for IFFCO, which has been procuring fruits of neem from farmers at ₹15 a kg.

“Neem also has many more applications other than for urea coating. It can be used in the manufacture of biopesticides and also in medicine,” he added.

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