Mumbai: Agrochemical major UPL Ltd on Tuesday said it has signed an agreement with Shreenath Mhaskoba Sugar Mill in Pune for sustainable sugarcane production in Maharashtra. This memorandum of understanding (MoU) will address farmers' concerns and create the category of sustainable sugar by ensuring optimised usage of natural resources, UPL said in a statement.
Through this collaboration and with the help of Zeba technology, UPL not only aims to increase the sugarcane yield by 15 per cent over 10,000 acres of land but also reduce the input costs, leading to an increase in farmer profit and income. The drive will impact more than 4,000 farmers in over 70 villages in Maharashtra. UPL has developed Zeba, a naturally derived, starch-based, completely biodegradable, super-absorbent to address these concerns. Intended for in-furrow application, Zeba increases the water holding capacity of the soil, improves the nutrient use efficiency in the crop's root zone and has a positive effect on the soil microbiome, thereby maintaining soil health.
With the help of Zeba technology, UPL is eyeing to save 600 crore litres of water and 500 tonnes of urea. The MoU will also provide sustainable solutions to the sugarcane farmers with end-to-end intervention in terms of advisory of Good Agronomical Practices (GAP), implementation of ProNutiva (Complete Crop protection and Nutrition Package), mechanisation in terms of planters, earthing up machines and boom sprayers, insurance and traceability through Nurture.farm app.
The drive will run in phases, which in the long run will help farmers to establish sugarcane nurseries (sugarcane seeds), which can be sold to other farmers. "Sustainability remains a top priority for us, and we are committed towards the same. We have made it our mission to change the game by making agri practices more sustainable.
"UPL is working towards creating sustainable technologies and platforms, such as OpenAg, that is changing the way a whole industry thinks and works and facilitating progress for the entire agricultural value chain," UPL CEO Jai Shroff said. (PTI)
