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| Reuters Market Light to offer agri info in Gujarat |
| Announcement / Corporate Sep 17, 2009, 14:11 IST |
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• Tie-up with Biostadt offers farmers secure agri-information
Reuters Market Light (RML), part of the Thomson Reuters group, the leading global information company, today announced its expansion into Gujarat by teaming up with Biostadt India Limited (BIL) to take agri-information service to farmers across the state.
RML’s information service offers customized, timely and relevant agriculture related information. This includes updates on various crops, market prices, market geographies, climate/weather conditions forecast, and related news that farmers can use to make decisions that positively impact productivity and income. The service is made available on mobile phones and the SMS service is available in Gujarati, Hindi and English amongst various other languages.
As part of the agreement with Biostadt, the RML service will be offered through multi divisions of the company including agrochemical, seed and its newly created Ingene Organics—which overall cover 1500 distributors and 20,000 retailers. Biostadt has a very significant presence in rural markets across the country and is very well known company in the agro industry for providing a range of crop protection chemicals and Biologically derived concept products like Biozyme that improve crop productivity.
The tie-up will take RML’s agri-information service to millions of farmers across Gujarat.
Biostadt, provides agricultural, human care and veterinary services to the farming community under the one roof as “Biostadt Aastha Clinics”. It will market the RML card through its “Biostadt Aastha Rath”, promotional vans to advertise the products & services of Biostadt. The two companies will work together in educating the farming community on the benefits of the ethical and unbiased content provided by RML.
Commenting on the marketing leverage Biostadt can bring to the promotion of the RML service, Mr. Devendra Kumar Chopra CEO of Biostadt India Limited said, “With a qualified marketing team of about 250 agriculture graduates and post graduates experienced and trained to serve the farming community , Biostadt is well positioned to promote the benefits of RML to farmers.”
Commenting on the tie-up, Mr. Maanav Yashroy of Reuters Market Light said, “The agri service launched by RML in three states of Maharashtra, Punjab & Haryana has met with overwhelming response from more than 100000 farmers. Teaming up with Biostadt will add real momentum and help us scale up our footprint across Gujarat in a very rapid and systematic way. In the process of building this pioneering business, we have continuously improved the service based on customer feedback; however rural distribution and marketing present an obvious opportunity to bring in third parties with real leveraging power. The RML-BIL tie-up is a major step to reaching millions of farmers through the agri-input consumption route”.
Mr. Juzar S Khorakiwala, Chairman and Managing Director of Biostadt India Limited said, “In the entire agriculture value chain from farming to the table, the Indian farmer is the biggest entrepreneur. He has to deal with a huge amount of uncertainty such as weather, prices, input practices etc, coupled with lack of credit and financial resources. Under these circumstances the information service launched by RML providing customized, localized information service to the farmer on his mobile handset will prove in the long run to de- risk his activity which can only be a good thing in efforts to improve productivity and income”.
RML has also partnered with Agha Khan rural support program (AKRSP) to extend its services to the framers in the state of Gujarat
About Reuters Market Light
Reuters Market Light (RML) is a highly personalized professional information service for farmers in India. Each farmer gets spot prices of his chosen crops from nearby markets, news and crop advice as per his region or crop, and localized weather forecast – all as per his individual preferences in his local language as simple SMSes. Within only 23 months of the launch in India, over 250,000 RML quarterly subscriptions have been bought by over a 100,000 farmers across 10,000 villages. The farmers have realized huge financial benefits – ranging from Rs. 500 to as high as Rs. 400,000. RML reduces their production and marketing risk.
About Thomson Reuters
Thomson Reuters is the world's leading source of intelligent information for businesses and professionals. We combine industry expertise with innovative technology to deliver critical information to leading decision makers in the financial, legal, tax and accounting, healthcare and science and media markets, powered by the world's most trusted news organization. With headquarters in New York and major operations in London and Eagan, Minnesota, Thomson Reuters employs more than 50,000 people and operates in over 100 countries. Thomson Reuters shares are listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange (TSX: TRI) and New York Stock Exchange (NYSE: TRI). For more information, go to www.thomsonreuters.com.
About Biostadt India Limited
Biostadt is one of the leading professionally managed companies in India with significant presence in Crop Care Business. The focus of the company is to help farming community to succeed in their endeavors to efficiently produce high quality crops with the help of Bio-technology based Research Products. Its R & D center called InGene Research Labs at Aurangabad has state of art R & D equipments and is recognized by the department of Science and Technology Government of India.
Biostadt has wide Distribution and Retailing Network across the country and has significant presence in South Asia, Far East. Middle East, and Parts of Europe and Africa.
For more details visit Web site: www.biostadt.com
• Customized services for 50 Crops & 131 Markets
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