HomePosts Tagged "Bananas"

The company aims to expand and diversify its B2B brand, Fasal Fresh, procuring sustainably grown, fully traceable, and high-quality produce from its extensive network of growers covering 75,000+ acres of Farmland enabled by Fasal’s IoT-crop intelligence technology

TDK Corporation announced that TDK Ventures, Inc. has invested in India’s full-stack agriculture pioneer Fasal, in an INR 100cr round co-led by British International Investments to foster its innovative full-stack horticulture optimisation solution and bring it to market. Fasal’s solution has already been proven to improve crop yield and reduce operational costs at an affordable price to the individual farmer. This financing round provides further ammunition to Fasal in its mission to transform the Indian agriculture industry with its full-stack platform anchored on top of its patented IoT-crop intelligence technology and expand further to Southeast Asia markets.

Since the commercialisation of its technology, Fasal has worked with horticulture farmers spanning more than 75,000+ acres growing crops like grapes, pomegranates, bananas, apples, chilli, cardamom, etc. by enabling them to grow more and grow better with its patented IoT-crop intelligence technology. Fasal’s farmers have reduced irrigation water consumption by 82.8 billion litres, pesticide reduction by 127,426 kgs, curbed GHG emissions by 54,965 MT, and increased their yields and quality by up to 30 per cent with the help of technology. Fasal has gone deeper into the value chain by building technology to predict the exact harvesting time, yield, and tentative quality and is utilising this intelligence to bring this sustainably grown, traceable, and high-quality produce to the consumers via its B2B brand ‘Fasal Fresh’.

The company highlights that its technology platform has a traceable supply of over half a billion USD worth of produce, connecting seamlessly with demand across various consumption markets in the supply chain, ensuring 10x more efficient procurement thereby reducing wastages significantly. This technology platform empowers the company to synchronise supply with the most appropriate demand directly at the farm gate before the harvest itself.

The company aims to expand and diversify

Trade opportunities and way forward to upscale the export of GI and traditional bananas from India

ICAR- National Research Centre for Banana, Tiruchirappalli and Agricultural and Processed Food Products Export Development Authority (APEDA), New Delhi jointly organised a two-day consultative workshop on ‘Export of GI and traditional bananas: Present scenario, trade opportunities and way forward’ during 21-22 December, 2022 at Tiruchirappalli to upscale the export of GI and traditional bananas from India.

The Chief Guest, M Angamuthu, IAS, Chairman, APEDA, New Delhi appreciated the efforts of ICAR-NRCB, FPOs, and banana farmers’ efforts to conserve the GI and traditional bananas. He stressed the need to utilise the varietal diversity of bananas by using cutting-edge technologies like artificial intelligence, and precision farming for extending export to more than fifty countries shortly.

The Special Guest, C Samayamoorthy, IAS, Agricultural Production Commissioner praised Tamil Nadu for cultivating diverse, traditional banana cultivars resistant to various biotic and abiotic stresses.  He also assured the support of the Tamil Nadu State Government for promoting exports of bananas.

The Special Guest, Rajalakshmi Devaraj, IDAS, Addl DGFT, Chennai underlined that under the District Export Hub Program, 11 districts from Tamil Nadu were selected in which Tiruchirappalli district was identified for banana export.

V Geethalakshmi, Vice Chancellor, TNAU, Coimbatore stressed the importance of soil management by following strategies such as precision farming, micro-irrigation, and fertigation, etc.

K M Indiresh, Vice-Chancellor, UHS, Bagalkot informed that under One District One Product (ODOP) program, in Karnataka, two regions were identified for promotion of bananas particularly value added products.

V B Patel, ADG (Horticultural Science -II), ICAR, New Delhi urged to enhance the productivity and improve the quality of bananas.

While presiding the inaugural session R Selvarajan, Director, ICAR-NRCB, mentioned that value of banana exports tripled from Rs 430 crores to 1300 crores during 2018-2022 and there is a great opportunity to export GI tagged and traditional banana cultivars in view of increasing demand for those cultivars. He applauded the Sirumalai and delta region farmers of Tamil Nadu for cultivating and protecting the GI-tagged and traditional cultivars of banana.

On this occasion, six publications were released and three awards were conferred to different stakeholders in banana production system viz., Jain Irrigation Systems Ltd., Jalgaon, Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu Banana Growers Federation, Thottiyam and Tamil Nadu Hill Banana Growers’ Federation.

More than 300 participants attended the export workshop and an exhibition was also organised wherein more than 100 varieties and landraces of bananas were displayed.

Plenary session of the workshop was held on 22 December, 2022. M K Shanmugasundaram, IAS, Development Commissioner, MEPZ,SEZ, Chennai was the Chief Guest and D K Agarwal, Registrar General, PPV &FRA, New Delhi and Alex Paul Menon, IAS, Joint Development Commissioner, MEPZ, SEZ, Chennai were the Guests of Honour.

Trade opportunities and way forward to upscale