Food and beverages firm, PepsiCo is planning to invest Rs 36.6 crore by 2020 in India with the aim to expand its agricultural programmes in the country.
It is important to mention that PepsiCo at present works with around 24,000 farmers in India to grow rice, potato, corn and citrus for its products like Lays, Kurkure snacks, Uncle Chipps and Tropicana juice.
While talking to media, Christine Daugherty, Global Vice President of Sustainable Agriculture at PepsiCo said, “The Company has plans to double the mutual farming network in the next 5 years, including expansion to new geographies.”
Daugherty said the PepsiCo is also eager to bring digital technology to the farms adding that for this “We are linking farmers to mobile apps which gives information from pest management to weather information.” She mentioned that through the sustainable farming programme, the company provides learning on field agronomy, fertilizers, plant protection techniques, irrigation and latest technologies. Moreover as per the company officials, under their guidance, potato growers have witnessed yield increase by up to 13 percent.
Daugherty further told PepsiCo association with Indian farmers goes back 28 years and that they worked with 24,000 growers across 14 states through several agri programs like collaborative farming, direct seeding of rice and drip irrigation programs.
She said, “In the year 2017, through our supervision of direct seeding of rice rather than going for flooding the fields and transplanting, we helped save 16.73 billion litres of water in 6 states i.e. Punjab, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh , Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu” adding that growers were able to save 30 percent water in paddy cultivation. Likewise, potato growers in Gujarat, Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh used drip irrigation system and reduced water consumption by 20 percent, she told.
