Markfed, Swiss firm to train farmers

Markfed (Punjab), the biggest marketing cooperative institution of Asia, has signed three MoUs with the world’s leading Switzerland-based agri-business company, Syngenta, which has a turnover of over $8.57 billion. It aims at training and educating farmers in safe and efficient use of pesticides.

The collaboration will start initially in five districts of Punjab — Ropar, Fatehgarh Sahib, Nawanshahar, Hoshiarpur and parts of Jalandhar — where two clusters of ten villages each will be identified for educating farmers. A team of Markfed & Syngenta officials will contact each farmer of the district belonging to the cluster along with agricultural experts to disseminate technical information.

Further, Markfed & Syngenta will jointly open three farmer training centres at Gidderbaha, Rajpura and Jalandhar to supply fertilisers, agro chemicals, and ISI mark cattlefeed, besides imparting training to the farmers.

They will also be responsible for product enhancement. In this regard three MoUs were signed between Markfed and Syngenta.

On the occasion of the signing of the deals, Punjab Cooperative Minister Kanwaljit Singh said, "We expect to go still bigger by signing marketing MoUs for three years."

Syngenta is a leading agri-business firm committed to sustainable agriculture through innovative research and technology. The company is a leader in crop protection, and ranks third in the high-value commercial seeds market. Sales in 2006 were approximately $8.1 billion. It employs around 21,000 people in over 90 countries and is listed on the Swiss Stock Exchange (SYNN) and in New York (SYT).

Syngenta India Ltd, having a manufacturing unit Goa and Aurangabad, posted a turnover of Rs 1,100 crore in the calendar year 2007 and this year it hopes to post a growth rate of 15 per cent. The company has a market share of 18 per cent in Punjab in crop protection chemicals.

Kanwaljit Singh said in order to up ‘per acre’ yield of all the crops in general and wheat, paddy and seven cotton in particular, Markfed and the cooperative societies had been asked to lead a campaign for the benefit of Punjab farmers.