KRBL plans to scale up seeds business

The 600 crore agri major Khushi Ram Behari Lal Ltd (KRBL) plans to scale up its seeds business by rationalising its product mix and range/variety by cross-breeding.

In the first phase, the company plans to produce high-quality seeds of cereals such as wheat, maize and pearl millet.

The company jointly with other agro product companies will market seeds in India. It is also scaling up its capacity to produce, process and market seeds of cereals, pulses, oilseeds and fibre crops.

According to company officials, the domestic seed industry is poised for growth as being witnessed in hybrid seeds.

Companies, therefore, attempt to build scale by acquiring small and medium-term players. Outsourcing through distributional tie-ups with large agro-chemical companies is also in vogue.

After achieving the pinnacle in the basmati rice exports, KRBL is strengthening its hold in the farm and food retail market by investing in international and domestic markets.

The research department of the company has developed a health oil from rice barn in addition to a variety of health foods, to be launched shortly, generated from by-products.

Barn oil is effective in controlling heart-related diseases and is popular in developed countries.

At the company's newly acquired rice milling facility at Dhuri in Punjab, the rice bran will be used to produce cooking oil and cosmetic oil with desired amounts of oryzanol, tocopherols and tocotrienols.

The de-oiled rice bran cake will be used in high quality cattle feed and poultry feed. It should be noted that this will be the first such integrated rice plant in Asia to come into full operation by October 2004. KRBL is likely to employ more than 1,500 people in this plant.