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HomePosts Tagged "South Asia"
Company News, Environment, India, Sustainability

Supported through Amazon’s Right Now Climate Fund (RNCF), the initiative will establish 75 urban food gardens across Bengaluru, Delhi, Hyderabad, and Kolkata municipal schools.

Amazon and ICLEI-Local Governments for Sustainability, South Asia, today announced the launch of an extensive urban food garden initiative to improve nutrition for children in municipal schools in India. The initiative aims to set up a network of 75 urban food gardens in municipal schools across Bengaluru, Delhi, Hyderabad and Kolkata. This US$1 million initiative is built on India’s School Nutrition Garden Scheme and is expected to provide 15 million school meals over three years for children in need.

The gardens in these urban biodiversity havens are meticulously designed small cultivation spaces promoting local food production and community engagement. In addition to encouraging state schools to grow food and supplying a greater variety of fresh produce in students’ midday meals, the initiative also supports educational experiences in composting and rainwater recycling. 

The urban food garden initiative is supported through Amazon’s Right Now Climate Fund, a $100 million initiative supporting climate resilience and nature conservation in communities where it operates. This fund finances nature-based solutions that complement Amazon’s broader operational decarbonisation and sustainability efforts. Urban gardens created through this initiative are designed to be biodiverse, productive, and resilient to the adverse impacts of climate change, contributing to the overall wellbeing of the environment and communities involved.

“The urban garden initiative with ICLEI South Asia is not just about growing food, it’s about nourishing futures. This aligns deeply with Amazon’s commitment to conserving, restoring, and supporting nature and our communities,” said Abhinav Singh, Vice President Operations, Amazon India. “By supporting this transformative initiative, we’re investing in the wellbeing of India’s youth and communities, environment, and sustainable development goals.”

In areas where space is limited, machaan (trellis) farming, or multilayer farming, will be employed to support year-round cultivation. This system helps to effectively utilize space, with vegetable plants such as ginger cultivated on the ground, and creepers like gourds covering the top of the trellis. Where there is space in the middle, tomatoes and brinjals can be grown. This practice of creating micro-habitats not only increases crop diversity, but also addresses the challenges of water logging and enhances overall produce availability. The urban gardens will enhance the air-quality while supporting food base for pollinator species such as bees. Improving pollinator diversity and supporting an improved habitat for them will contribute to addressing the global crisis of pollinator decline. Additionally, these urban biodiversity havens will serve as a valuable educational tool, giving students firsthand experience with natural processes such as pollination and plant growth cycles.

Supported through Amazon’s Right Now Climate Fund

Agro chems – Pesticides, Company News, India, People, Seeds

Geed’s expertise in strategic planning and focus on customer value creation aligns perfectly with Corteva’s commitment to advancing the transformation of agriculture.

Corteva Agriscience, a global leader in agriculture solutions, is pleased to name Subroto Geed as President, South Asia. Leading the South Asia Business, Geed will drive growth for Corteva’s Seed and Crop Protection businesses with an aim to enhance agricultural productivity, enriching farmer livelihoods, and fostering sustainable farming practices throughout the region.

Geed holds a bachelor’s degree in pharmacy from Indore University and a post graduate diploma in Management from Symbiosis Centre for Management and HRD, Pune. He brings a wealth of knowledge from his previous experience at Diageo, GSK Consumer Healthcare, Pfizer and Aliaxis.

Geed’s educational background, combined with his rich professional experience, positions him well to lead Corteva business. With a proven track record of delivering accelerated growth through multi-functional teams, Geed’s expertise in strategic planning and focus on customer value creation aligns perfectly with Corteva’s commitment to advancing the transformation of agriculture, helping farmers become more productive and sustainable.

“We are thrilled to welcome Subroto to Corteva Agriscience as our new President, South Asia,” said Rahoul Sawani, Regional President, Asia Pacific. “His extensive experience and deep understanding of diverse industries and markets will be invaluable as we pursue our growth through tech-innovation in the agriculture industry.”

“Corteva has established itself as the global leader in the agricultural technology industry and I am excited about this opportunity to build on the momentum” said Subroto Geed, President South Asia. “With an unparalleled tradition of innovation, and sustainability at the core of its business, I look forward to working closely with the team to foster strategic partnerships and deliver value to our farmers and stakeholders.”

Geed's expertise in strategic planning and focus

Company News, India

The company also ranked amongst the 100 Best Companies for Women twice in a row

Thermo Fisher Scientific in India has once again been recognised with two prestigious awards, strengthening its position as a leading workplace in the country. The company has been certified as a Great Place to Work by the Great Place to Work Institute for the fifth consecutive year and ranked among the 100 Best Companies for Women in India for the second year in a row by Avtar and Seramount.

These recognitions demonstrate Thermo Fisher’s dedication to fostering a people-centric culture and implementing policies and practices that enable employees to build rewarding careers while delivering excellence to customers.

“As a purpose-driven organisation, we have an important role to play in supporting our customers, colleagues and communities. I am immensely proud that we continue to remain deeply rooted in our culture defined by our values while delivering on our commitments,” said Amit Chopra, Managing Director, India and South Asia, Thermo Fisher Scientific. “We take pride in nurturing a workplace that recognizes our colleagues as our greatest assets and championing a culture where unique perspectives are respected.”

Great Place To Work is a renowned global authority on workplace culture that partners with more than 1,400 organisations annually across 22 industries in the country to help them build High-Trust, High-Performance Cultures designed to deliver sustained business results.

As a part of the comprehensive assessment process, Great Place To Work evaluated Thermo Fisher on various factors that included credibility, fairness, respect and camaraderie, among others, to measure employee satisfaction.

Further, Thermo Fisher’s inclusion in the top 100 Best Companies for Women India list, out of more than 350 companies across various industries, reinforces the company’s commitment to upholding equal opportunities and diversity.

The study slated as India’s most comprehensive gender analytics exercise was conducted by Avtar, India’s premier Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion solutions firm along with Seramount, a strategic professional services and research firm dedicated to supporting high-performing, inclusive workplaces.

The company also ranked amongst the 100

Agrotech, Company News, Horticulture, India

To create a collaborative ecosystem to unlock the potential of the horticulture segment.

Bayer, a global enterprise with core competencies in the life science fields of agriculture and healthcare organized a National seminar “India Horticulture Future Forum 2023” yesterday, to deliberate upon the future of Indian Horticulture and nutrition security concerns that can be alleviated through the Fruits and Vegetables segment. In this one of its kind events, the spotlight was on the challenges, opportunities, and advancements of the segment from the lens of empowering the smallholders for better economic prospects. The event involved presentations as well as panel discussions on effective policies, schemes, implementation models, and programs aimed at boosting the sector’s competitiveness and growth. The event was attended by senior policymakers, regulators, researchers, academicians, subject matter experts, corporates from across the value chain and representatives of financial institutions and importing countries.

The India Horticulture Future Forum 2023 held insightful sessions with an India-centric perspective, discussing development opportunities in the sector. The event featured several engaging sessions, including “AgTech Revolution focusing on Horticulture,” “Fruits and Vegetables for Better Health and Nutrition,” “Export Opportunity for India in Horticulture,” and “Insights into Policy Developments and Key Regulations.”

All these key pillars were deliberated upon by the experts with the aim to create diverse workstreams to address the key concerns and opportunities for the sustainable growth of the segment. Grant Thornton Bharat LLP served as the Knowledge Partner for this event and will be facilitating these task forces along with Bayer.

In a special message read out during the event, Narendra Tomar,Union Minister of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare, Government of India said, “The country has today graduated from largely targeting food security issues to nutritional security issues. In this setting, horticulture production is the key to address both the challenges.”

Speaking at the conference, D Narain, President, South Asia, and Global Head of Smallholder Farming, said, “India will witness a threefold jump in demand and consumption of horticultural crops within the next decade apart from the opportunities associated with global exports. In this context, the India Horticulture Future Forum is an effort to create a collaborative ecosystem to fully harness the potential of the horticulture segment from a macro lens of nutritional security and national economic growth while at the grassroots level, positively impacting the incomes and livelihoods of millions of smallholder farmers”.

Professor V. Padmanand, Partner, Grant Thornton LLP, said “Strengthening the horticulture value chain will involve interventions in the production, post-harvest and processing infrastructure and marketing and logistics space. Team Grant Thornton has been working extensively on these areas with the government, private stakeholders, farmers as well as global development partners. The need of the hour is to upscale best practices and models countrywide through synergized joint action.”

At the seminar, experts discussed urgent steps required to integrate and revamp the horticulture production and value chain system, promote healthier and more nutritious foods, and improve farmers’ income.

To create a collaborative ecosystem to unlock