Agro-chemicals major Insecticides (India) Ltd. (IIL) is set to commercialise its maiden bio-product ‘Mycoraja’ ahead of the onset of the Kharif season to establish a footprint in the Rs.5,000-crore market segment. While it had been partially commercialised in Haryana around the same time last fiscal, a company official told BusinessLine on Tuesday that the bio-fertiliser will be made available all over the country from April.

Mycoraja is a Mycorrhiza fungus-based fertiliser which the company believes could help enhance crop yield. The fungus forms a symbiotic relationship with the crop’s root and helps it build immunity while enhancing nourishment through better absorption of nutrients, particularly nitrogen, but also important micronutrients like sulphur, zinc and manganese.

“It’s our first bio-product and we were pleased with the successful trials in UP and MP, and particularly with the responses from farmers in Haryana where we had partially commercialised it. We will now introduce it nationally in the days leading up to the 2015 Kharif season, starting from next month itself,” said Rajesh Aggarwal, Managing Director, IIL, adding that IIL was targeting sales of Rs.15-20 crore of the bio-fertiliser.

Trials were carried out with the participation of around 20 farmers each in Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh while more than a hundred cultivators used the product in Haryana.

The company’s research and development centre in Chopanki, Rajasthan, would continue to undertake more work on such ‘biologicals’, Aggarwal said, since the segment had been identified as a developing one in India with “more people getting interested”.

Unseasonal rain

The heavy showers over three weeks since February-end hurt IIL’s sales particularly across the northern and central belt with the company now unlikely to meet its revenue guidance of Rs.1,200 crore for the 2014-15 fiscal.

“There’s been an impact of about 7-8 per cent on our sales with farmers having to stay away from the fields through the hailstorms and heavy rain. We are likely to miss the revenue target by about 10-12 per cent as a result. We’ve made up some of the losses by introducing new technicals in Q4,” said Aggarwal.

He added that overall growth for the current fiscal was likely to be between 15 and 18 per cent and was confident that targeted growth of 25 per cent for the next fiscal would be achieved. IIL’s turnover for 2014-15 will be around Rs. 1,050 crore.

Exports focus

Aggarwal was also buoyed by the company’s export wing being made operational earlier this year. “The results will be seen next fiscal. Our distributors have been selected and we’re expecting at least Rs.70-80 crore next year from international markets, particularly in the ASEAN region, Africa and the Middle East,” he said.

Exports of Indian-manufactured agro-chemicals and insecticides are on average to the tune of Rs. 15,000 crore every year.

IIL stock closed 2.78 per cent lower at Rs.691 on the BSE on Tuesday.

Related Topics
comment COMMENT NOW