Coca Cola’s bottle arm in India, Hindustan Coca-Cola Beverages, and Jain Irrigation are making a joint investment of Rs 50 crore (US$7.9 million) into a mango production project in the country.
The two companies will commit their joint investment to the project, ‘Unnati Phase II’. The Unnati project is designed to help farmers adopt Ultra High Density Plantation techniques to improve mango yields.
The first phase of the project was launched with an initial investment of US$2 million in 2011. Since that time 200 demonstration farms have been created and 18,000 farmers have been trained.
Under the second phase of the project, 25,000 farmers from Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, and Andhra Pradesh will be enrolled in the training program.
India is the top producer of mangoes in the world, however the country’s average yield per hectare is one of the world’s lowest at six tons per hectare, compared to an average yield of 16 tons per hectare for Brazil.
The Ultra High Density Plantation practice is common in many other countries around the world, and the Unnati project will be continuing to scale up over the next ten years to widely integrate the technique into India’s production chain.
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