Trading firm LDC to help cotton growers tackle pests via Project Jagruti

French global agri-trading firm LDC (Louis Dreyfus Company) is trying to minimise the losses of farmers, particularly cotton, through technology, sustainable agriculture and awareness. 

As part of its commitment to sustainable agriculture practices, the trading firm has launched Project Jagruti focussing on tackling the pink bollworm (PBW) menace, besides other pests and diseases. 

“It is about creating awareness among farmers on how much damage it can cause if control measures are not taken or early warning messages are ignored,” said Sriramappa Gangadhara, head of agri research for cotton (India & Pakistan) and grains & oilseeds (India), LDC.

Last year, LDC educated about 25,000 farmers across the country. “For this, we conducted about 85 meetings in different locations. Some 100-150 farmers attended these meetings. In some meetings, up to 300 farmers took part,” he told businessline in an online interaction. 

Maintaining output

At the meetings, organised with the help of local agriculture departments and non-government organisations, LDC equipped growers with a lot of study material about the PBW, its lifecycle, measures to control it and equipping them with over 1.2 lakh pheromone traps. 

“The pheromone trap is a guide for farmers to identify whether the pink bollworms are in their field. Survey shows that PBW has developed resistance to genetically modified Bt cotton varieties. This is affecting the crop yield,” the LDC official said. 

India needs to maintain cotton production. Losses due to PBW go up to as high as 30 per cent in some cases. “We want to minimise those losses,” he said, adding that LDC is carrying out this in association with the Louis Dreyfus Foundation owned by it.

On its part, LDF is focussing on Asia, Africa and Latin America in helping small and marginal farmers. There is a potential to increase the yields in these regions through sustainable agriculture activities, he said. 

Improving corn yield

LDC is carrying out a project in corn in Banswara district. “India needs to meet the demand coming from different sources such as ethanol, starch and other things. But it produces less. The idea is to increase production, particularly in the Rajasthan belt,” said Gangadhara.

Farmers in the region use the local variety for cultivation and not high-yielding hybrid seeds. The project is to create awareness about this and make it comfortable for them to grow hybrid seeds. This has resulted in the yield doubling from 6-7 quintals a hectare to 12-13 quintals. 

“We will be continuing the project this year too. We have covered about 1,500 farmers and will be adding more,” the LDC official said. 

The company has taken up mustard cultivation as part of its sustainable agriculture efforts. “We need to make India self-sufficient. Among oilseeds, mustard has a high oil content of 38-40 per cent. So we need to increase the mustard yield,” he said.

Ensuring soil health

The French trading firm will be continuing the project while adding a few more projects in the coming seasons. The company has done a sustainable wheat pilot project, where huge savings of water have been witnessed. 

On the regenerative agriculture front, LDC is aiming to ensure that soil health is restored besides tackling global warming, mainly carbon emissions.

Fertilizer and farming are two sources of greenhouse gas emissions. LDC is trying to minimise chemical fertilizer application and educating farmers on this. 

“We started this programme a year ago. We have completed one season and we are expanding to rope in more farmers. Last year, we signed about 4000-plus farmers. We are adding 4,000 more in the 2024-25 season,” said Gangadhara. 

Why Maharashtra!

All of these 8,000 farmers are from Aurangabad in Maharashtra, Aurangabad. The project, covering 200 hectares, will be carried out for a few more years covering more area, he said, adding that one of the efforts of the organisation is to reduce at least one round of irrigation to the plants. 

Stating that Maharashtra will be a model project for regenerative farming, Gangadhara said once LDC is sure about the results, it will begin the replication project at a faster clip.  

On why Maharashtra has been picked up for the project, the LDC official said it was because weather conditions were conducive and farmers were eager to try out new things.  

The French trading firm is pursuing these projects as it is connected with growers and consumers and wants to build a good ecosystem connecting both. The ecosystem will be linked with the traceability of agri produce becoming easy.

Responsible coffee sourcing

 Dwelling on traceability, he said LDC was trying to create documents from the farmer level. “We have farmers’ field groups and apps. We are trying to digitise it, which should happen this year.  This will lead to responsible sourcing,” he said. 

On the future of sustainable cotton, Gangadhara said 80 companies are working on this and a few of them are expanding. With people priding on paying a premium for responsible agricultural produce, the demand could increase over the next five years. 

LDC is into responsible sourcing, including rainforest certification, of coffee from India and it currently makes up 30 per cent of total coffee exports from the country. The company has been training farmers in this over the past 7-8 years, Gangadhara said.   

LDC has a dedicated team working on regenerative agriculture. It has a couple of such projects in Australia and Brazil too.