Pepsi and agriculture, can you relate the two images? I hope you can’t and me neither, but Pepsi Co India has various community welfare projects. Now, the cola giant is looking forward to implement direct seeding technology for paddy cultivation which would require less water. Under traditional method, seeds are first sowed in a nursery. After saplings grow from the seeds, they are transplanted to the fields manually. This method consumes lots of water. Pepsi Co. India will sow seeds employing their new method over 4000 acres of land in the next paddy season in Punjab. The company will also try the new method over 1000 acres of land owned by 600 farmers around the country. Pepsi has made a buy-back agreement with the farmers whose lands have been cultivated under the new methodology.
Business Standard reports:
With the new method, the company claims to save up to 30 per cent water but will also help in tackling farm labour shortage as the sowing is done by a machine, which is developed locally and costs only Rs.40,000.
PepsiCo announced the success of its innovative direct seeding methodology. Through this unique initiative, the company claims that it has saved 30 per cent (900 kl/acre) of water in the region and has also reduced the production cost.
PepsiCo India, General Manager (Agriculture), Sushil Sankhiyan said that traditional method of paddy cultivation is very water intensive and this has caused a decline in the water table in Punjab. As a part of Pepsi Co India’s effort to sustain the Indian agriculture and reduce the water consumption, the company has introduced direct seeding method. So far, the technique has been expected extremely well by the farmers.
PepsiCo India has implemented its new seeding method at Sangrur, Amritsar, Patiala, Jalandhar, Kapurthala, Hoshiarpur, districts in Punjab and plans to bring few more districts under the new method.
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Business Standard
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