Mahadhan Agri comes up with crop-specific solutions to take care of farmers’ ‘pain points’

Mahadhan Agritech, a fully owned subsidiary of Deepak Fertilisers and Petrochemicals Corporation, has come up with two crop-specific solutions to take care of all “pain points” of farmers, its Chief Operating Office (COO) Naresh Deshmukh said. “At Mahadhan Agritech Limited, we have strategised ourselves to move from commodity to crop-specific solution,” he told businessline in an online interaction.

The company has launched Croptek and Solutek, which provide crop-specific granules and crop-specific solutions.  These products have eight nutrient combinations that crops require. The fertilizer solutions have been recognised by the Union Department of Fertilizer, he said. 

Crops in focus

Croptek focuses on crops such as onion, sugarcane, cotton, groundnut, maize and soyabean. The crop nutrition solution for soyabean was launched recently, Deshmukh said. 

These six crops are considered important from the cash crops point of view and dominate in the central and western parts of the country. “This is like giving ready-made food to the grower for his crop. It saves his pain and struggles on calculating the fertilizer dose, how much has to be applied and what sort of secondary nutrient should be given to the crop,” the company’s COO said. 

All these “pain points” are bundled into one solution in a balanced manner. The technology helps the fertilizer to improve its efficiency and reduces the cost of fertilizer by 20 per cent.  There are three grades to be applied to each of the six crops — the early start, middle reproductive stage and last maturity stage grades.

The technology helps to improve crop productivity by 12-15 per cent. It also reduces the cost of fertilizer by 20 per cent and also crop input costs, he said.  

Tie-up with Israeli firm

Similarly, Mahadhan has formed a partnership with Israel-based Haifa Group, a  leading global firm in specialty fertilizers, to market such water-soluble fertilizers under its Solutek brand name. The company associated itself with the Israeli firm as there is a demand for quality speciality fertilizers for fruits and vegetables, said Deshmukh, who has been in the industry for over three decades.  

These speciality fertilizers, which are crop- and stage-specific applied through drip irrigation, will help improve crop productivity, quality, size, shape and colour of the produce and crunchiness to meet all the standards of the global supermarket. These products are targeted at crops such as pomegranates, grapes, bananas and oranges.

On how the company’s fertilizer helps preserve the soil health and water contamination, Deshmukh said of the 63 million tonnes (mt) of fertilizer consumed annually in the country, 35 mt or 56 per cent of it is urea. “The balance is the phosphatic fertilizer, which we call it the NPK. The crop absorbs only 30 per cent of nitrogen from the urea and the rest percolates into the soil. So there is contamination to the water and it also deteriorates the soil health.  Our balanced nutrition product plays a significant role in the management of fertilizer and there is no leakage to the soil. This is where we are promoting Croptek,” the company’s COO said. 

Problem ahead of rabi?

On how the fertilizer industry is faring currently, he said sales have gone up since June and the demand has been good. “Fertilizer consumption has improved and it is showing growth over last year,” Deshmukh said.

On the other hand, the industry is struggling to get imported fertilizers, especially DAP and NPK. “Considering that global prices have gone up since June, imports are not feasible. To some extent, we expect there will be some supply-demand gap during the rabi season, especially in North India,” Deshmukh said, adding the inventory has come down especially in Karnataka, Maharashtra and Gujarat.