Connect with:
Friday / November 22. 2024

logo
mobile-logo
HomePosts Tagged "pepsico India"
Agrotech, Company News, India, IT, Start ups

User-friendly mobile apps to provide farmers with insights on their crop health including a disease early warning system.

PepsiCo India, through its brand “Lay’s”, announced a crop & plot-level predictive intelligence model to help farmers maximize potato yields coupled with quality via functional dashboards on user-friendly mobile apps. Launched in collaboration with Cropin, a leading global agri-tech company known for creating the first industry cloud for agriculture, this initiative is a part of PepsiCo’s ‘Precision Agriculture’ model for India and is being implemented as a pilot project in demo farms at Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh.

Most farmers in India own less than one hectare of farmland and face constant challenges due to lack of means to evaluate the optimum consumption of agri-inputs like water, fertilizers, and pesticides as well as actionable weather data. For example, potato yield losses caused through the blight crop disease can go up to 80 per cent if not forecasted early. Significant yield loss caused due to ground frost is another serious issue for potato farmers especially in the northern parts of the country.

The new initiative under the PepsiCo-owned brand “Lays” has the potential to address these challenges by using satellite imagery correlated with remote sensing data to provide insights. The system can generate a forecast up to 10 days in advance which can assist farmers in identifying different crop stages, and close monitoring of crop health, including a disease warning system that relies on weather forecasts and historical data.

Post harvest potatoes

In India, PepsiCo works directly and indirectly with over 27,000 farmers across 14 states and 100% of the potatoes for its “Lay’s” brand are sourced from farmers within the country. In its pilot stage, the necessary training and handholding to the farmers is being provided through field agronomists who are helping them understand the dashboard and leverage the insights. Currently, the model covers 62 farms as a trial: 51 in Gujarat and 11 in Madhya Pradesh.

Elaborating on the benefits of the model, Anukool Joshi, Director – Agro at PepsiCo India, said, “Being an Agri company at heart, we aim to bring in sustainable, resilient, and inclusive solutions that would address the diverse issues of farmers and help them improve their livelihoods. Through our partnership with Cropin on this new initiative, our goal is to eventually roll-out this solution to PepsiCo farmers across India and empower them with real-time tracking of crop health to maximize yield and quality.”

Commenting on the partnership, Krishna Kumar, Co-Founder & CEO, Cropin, said, “PepsiCo through its brand Lay’s has been leading the way to enable agriculture modernization and its impact at the grassroots level. While their focus on digital transformation directly aids business growth, it also accelerates small-holder farmer empowerment, drives sustainability, and sets new standards in global farming. Using Cropin’s proven plot-level predictive intelligence solution, PepsiCo is mitigating business risks and forecast crop yield and health, water stress, pest and disease early warning signals for efficient business management.”

The dashboards and related information would be accessed by the farmers through easy-to-use smartphone-based apps, namely “Cropin Grow” for farm data management and “Plot Risk” for crop intelligence. The apps can support multiple languages, and PepsiCo plans to offer the solutions in 14 regional languages in alignment with its commitment towards inclusivity in the supply chain. Built using the world’s largest crop knowledge graph, Cropin’s predictive and plot intelligence models are fine-tuned for specific crop varieties, conditions, and locations.

User-friendly mobile apps to provide farmers with

Agrotech, Climate, Environment, India, R&D, Sustainability

The company’s Biochar Initiative continues to benefit local farmers while improving air and soil quality

PepsiCo India has extended its Biochar Initiative, a pilot crop residue management program, to the Fatehgarh Sahib and Ludhiana districts of Punjab as a potential solution to address the pressing issue of stubble burning in the northern states of India. This initiative will continue to work with more farmers in Punjab to better manage harvest residue by using furnaces known as retort kilns to produce biochar fertiliser through a process called pyrolysis.

According to Indian Agricultural Research Institute (IARI), stubble burning in Punjab released 6.8 million tonnes of greenhouse gases and particulate matter between September 15 and November 2, 2022. Biochar production and usage have the potential to reduce GHG emissions significantly compared to other forms of disposal such as heaping while improving soil health and water retention.

PepsiCo India’s Biochar Initiative aligns with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), particularly SDG 13 (Climate Action) and SDG 2 (Zero Hunger). Through these efforts, the company also aims to improve the per-hectare crop yields for small and marginal farmers while contributing to global efforts to mitigate climate change.

Speaking about the initiative, Anukool Joshi, Director – Agro at PepsiCo India said, “Enhancing soil function and health using biochar can increase agricultural output and reduce expenses related to nutrient and environmental effects. In comparison to other crop residue management options, our preliminary data has shown increased net benefit to the farmers through the adoption of biochar.”

Today, PepsiCo in India works directly and indirectly with over 27,000 farmers across 14 states, sourcing 100 per cent of the potatoes for its Lay’s brand in India from Indian farmers.

Naginder Singh, an owner of the farm where PepsiCo India commissioned the first retort kiln, highlights the benefits he sees from adopting biochar: “PepsiCo India helped us to set up furnaces to produce biochar. After the biochar is prepared, we spread it into the fields that are ready for cultivation. I would recommend biochar to all farmers. Using it helps our soil and saves our environment from further pollution while reducing the use of chemical fertilisers”.

The company’s Biochar Initiative continues to benefit

Agrotech, Allied Industry

Both companies have partnered to create sustainable change through unique drip irrigation technology

PepsiCo India and N-Drip, manufacturer of an innovative gravity-powered micro-irrigation system, have announced a partnership, as a lead-up to World Water Day 2022, to help farmers in India adopt game-changing technology in water efficiency. The technology has already been introduced in the states of Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, and Rajasthan with an aim to improve water efficiency levels across thousands of hectares in the country by 2025. This is part of a global partnership between PepsiCo and N-Drip aimed at increasing water efficiency across 10,000 hectares (25,000 acres) around the world by 2025.

N-Drip’s high-efficiency irrigation system is powered by gravity and harnesses the water-saving benefits of high-pressure drip irrigation, but with low energy, operating and maintenance demands—making it more accessible to all types of farmers and nearly all types of crops. Farmers using N-Drip routinely achieve significant water savings, see larger crop yields, and reduce the need for expensive fertilizess. In addition, by converting from flood irrigation to N-Drip’s drip irrigation system, carbon (CO2) emissions are reduced by as much as 83 per cent and methane emissions by as much as 78 per cent.

Speaking about this development, Pratap Bose, Agro Director, Supply Chain, PepsiCo India, said, “Being an agri centric company at heart, PepsiCo India over the last 30+ years has been working towards increasing efficiency across its agri supply chain to reduce water usage by providing alternates to flood irrigation practices. The collaboration with N-Drip is another step in that direction. We are excited to partner with them as they are committed to solving the problem of water shortage by providing a robust alternative to flood irrigation. The initial response to the pilot project has been quite encouraging. We are already seeing improved crop yields, reduced fertiliser usage, and an average reduction of 39 per cent water consumption compared to flood irrigation in states of Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, and Rajasthan.”

This new innovative technology not only applies to potato cultivation but also to other crops such as vegetables or maize.

Both companies have partnered to create sustainable