Shivaji Rao Dusing, a 36-year-old farmer in Nagar district of Maharashtra, was barely managing to make ends meet four years back, earning between Rs 50,000 and R1 lakh per year selling the 10-15 quintals wheat and bajra he managed to produce. But in the past 20 months, Dusing?s income has grown almost ten-fold to Rs 9.8 lakh per annum after he took up cultivation of pomegranate.
Nilkanth Narkhede, a 52-year-old banana farmer in Jalgaon district of Maharashtra, is a satisfied man today. His income touched R25 lakh last year on the back of high-yielding banana crop. Narkhede was in distress 15 years back after a separation between three brothers which left him with a mere 2.5 acres of land and one water pump to irrigate. Till 2005, he was able to produce only 50% of what he can now, which is 300 quintals of banana.
So what changed Dusing?s and Narkhede?s fortunes? Some clever innovations in tissue culture technology and irrigation. And both farmers, just like hundreds across Maharashtra, have Jain Irrigation to thank for sticking around where other giant companies failed.
These farmers say they have seen several companies try their hands at tissue culture, but only Jain Irrigation has been able to provide them with high-yield, disease-resistant saplings that have actually made farming profitable for them.
?The saplings that Jain provides are of very good quality,? says Dusing, a second-generation farmer, who did his bit of reading and research on new agricultural technologies and benefits of tissue culture before zeroing in on pomegranate saplings from Jain.
Tissue-cultured saplings are grown in controlled conditions of a laboratory to a certain level, after which they are planted in fields. Jain Irrigation sold close to five crore banana saplings last financial year and expects to close the year at almost double that figure. They sold 28 lakh pomegranate saplings in 2011-12 and expect to close this year with 55 lakh saplings.
Headquartered in Jalgaon, a small town separated by over 400 km from Mumbai, Jain Irrigation garnered R3,791.5 crore in revenue at the end of the financial year 2011-12. Over the last four decades, Jain has built itself into an integrated company in the agricultural sector. What started as a company providing farmers with solutions in drip irrigation has now made its way into dehydrated onions and vegetables; processed fruits; tissue culture, hybrid and grafted plants; greenhouses, poly and shade houses and bio-fertilisers.
As Anil Jain, managing director, Jain Irrigation, says, ?Our innovations in agriculture include not only efficient and most viable micro-irrigation technologies with water harvesting and higher water use efficiency, but also newer crop agronomy with greenhouse technology, tissue culture planting materials that are disease-free and high yielding. Jain Irrigation is also promoting ultra-high density planting systems for higher yield in many horticultural crops. We are introducing high-yielding onion varieties along with better agronomy.? He adds, ?Jain Irrigation has also recently launched energy applications in agriculture by developing efficient and cost-effective solar pumps apart from solar products like solar lighting and heating systems.?
Jain Irrigation is serving almost all parts of Maharashtra. These belts include all horticultural crops, particularly the banana and citrus belts that have both mosambi and Nagpur oranges; grape gardens, pomegranate orchards, mango groves, vegetable corridors of Pune and Nasik and the entire onion belt. Jain Irrigation provides disease-free tissue culture planting material and high-quality seeds for onion, besides providing micro-irrigation for sugarcane, cotton and pulses.
With its drip irrigation systems, Jain Irrigation has made agriculture profitable in what was once considered a wasteland. Their technologies have saved up to 50% of water required for irrigation. ?Our area is dependent on a rain-fed river for irrigation. In 2006-07, there were no rains and only drip irrigation saved us,? recalls Narkhede of Jalgaon.
?Our business model is unique and provides end-to-end solutions to small farmers for making agriculture remunerative by offering contract farming and buyback of farm produce. It adds value to primary commodities and provides sustainable and profitable solutions to farming by providing market access. Jain Irrigation also gives knowledge inputs on a massive scale by providing training and demonstrations to farmers, and does complete hand-holding throughout the value chain. Sharing value in agribusiness can be a better business model which is more sustainable,? says Anil Jain.
Apart from hand-holding farmers from the sowing to harvesting stage, Jains have innovated throughout. As the business grew, so did the company?s consumption of power. To bridge the gap and the cost of power, Jain Irrigation installed an 8.5 MW solar energy plant and an in-house technology-propelled 1.6 MW biogas plant.
At present, the biogas plant is taking care of 30% of the power consumption in the company?s onion dehydration plant. Two years back, when Jains were faced with the dilemma of disposing of the increasing waste as a result of the growing fruit and vegetable processing business, the idea of having an in-house biogas plant came about. ?Disposing of so much waste on open land would have spoiled it and is also against Jain?s philosophy,? says Sunil Deshpande, the man behind this venture. Today, the last bit of waste that is produced from its fruit and vegetable processing units is used as feed for the gas plant. It handles 120-150 metric tonnes of waste per day.
This reclamation of waste has been with the company since its inception, says 75-year-old Bhavarlal Jain, founder, Jain Irrigation. Jain seems to have come a long way since he purchased the first block of 55 acres of wasteland in the form of a hillock for just above R3 lakh 20 years ago.
?My jeep could not go up. It was impossible to even climb because we did not know which was the easier way. So we got a donkey because they have a ?sixth sense? and the donkey led us. And I thought that if we are claiming that drip irrigation can do wonders, why not try it out here because this is the worst land, and if it succeeds here, it will succeed everywhere,? he says, sitting in a glass cabin on top of the hill.
?For 20 years, we have been working on this model and we have been able to transform it from a wasteland to a beautiful place. And we are ensuring that people are able to duplicate that success,? he adds.