TLALNEPANTLA DE BAZ, Mexico--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Mexichem, S.A.B. de C.V. (BMV: MEXCHEM*) (“the Company” or “Mexichem”) announced that its Netafim subsidiary is implementing four large community irrigation projects that span 100 villages across India, delivering water to 135,000 acres and positively impacting nearly 60,000 rural farmers. These projects demonstrate how Netafim partners with farmers and governments around the world to help improve the livelihoods of rural farmers with the latest precision irrigation technologies and digital farming solutions.
Netafim’s precision irrigation feeds the plant instead of the soil, delivering water and nutrients straight to the roots, which dramatically lowers water consumption and other resources such as labor, fertilizers and crop protection, while yielding significantly higher and better-quality crops. Netafim is deploying its precision irrigation technologies in India’s Singataluru, Ananthapuramu District and Tarikere regions. Singataluru is comprised of two projects that covers 41 villages, helping approximately 15,000 farmers. The Ananthapuramu project covers 22 villages, helping approximately 13,000 farmers. The Tarikere project covers 45 villages, helping approximately 27,000 farmers.
The four projects are following the successful implementation of the Ramthal community irrigation project, that was completed in 2017 and delivered precision irrigation to 7,000 farmers in 28 villages in Karnataka, India. Netafim works with Megha Engineering and Infrastructure Limited (MEIL) in all these projects.
“It’s truly rewarding to see the type of positive impact we’re having on these farmers by bringing them precision irrigation for the very first time,” said Mr. Randhir Chauhan, Managing Director of Netafim India. “We’re helping them maximize crop yields, while reducing the water and fertilizer consumption. This is smart digital farming in the most rural of settings.”
Water savings estimates are on the order of 40% less consumption combined with significantly higher yield. Additionally, with the Netafim system these farmers can expect to consume 40% less fertilizer to grow a broad range of crops including: Bengal Gram, corn (maize), peanut (groundnut), sorghum (Jowar), sunflower, wheat, various beans, chilies, onions and vegetables. The precision irrigation technologies will also help grow flowers for sale (floriculture) more sustainably.
Ran Maidan, Netafim President and CEO added, “India is a key market for Netafim in fulfillment of its commitment to help the world to grow more with less. The community irrigation model is enabling us, together with local governments to impact the livelihood of thousands of farmers with our most advanced precision irrigation and digital farming solutions.”
“The government decided to move to drip irrigation where consumption of water is less,” said Mr. Anjum Parwez, Senior IAS officer, Former MD, KBJNL (Krishna Bhagya Jal Nigam Limited) Karnataka, India. “And Netafim came at that point of time with the whole concept and helps us accomplish our goal.”
The impact of the community irrigation project percolates to the lives of small stakeholders as Mrs. Lakshmi Bai Sajjan, a Rakkasagi village farmer shared, “Before drip irrigation we used to get good returns only if it rained well. When the rain wasn’t plentiful, we lost our investment on seeds, fertilizers and labor cost. Now, we have gained good farming skills and experience from Netafim.”
ABOUT NETAFIM
Netafim is a Mexichem subsidiary, representing its Precision Agriculture business. As a global leader in precision irrigation for a sustainable future, Netafim delivers innovative, tailor-made solutions to millions of farmers, from smallholders to large-scale agricultural producers, in over 110 countries. Founded in 1965, Netafim pioneered the drip revolution, creating a paradigm shift toward precision irrigation. Today, Netafim provides diverse precision irrigation solutions for agriculture, greenhouses, landscaping and mining, accompanied by expert agronomic, technical and operational support. Netafim is also leading the way in digital farming for irrigation, integrating monitoring, analysis and automation into one state-of-the-art system. Specializing in end-to-end solutions from the water source to the root zone, Netafim delivers turnkey irrigation and greenhouse projects, supported by engineering, project management and financing services.
ABOUT MEXICHEM
Mexichem is a global leader supplier of innovative solutions across multiple industries including building and infrastructure, data communications, irrigation and chemicals, and more. With operations in 41 countries, 137 facilities worldwide and more than 22,000 employees, Mexichem has the rights to produce fluorspar in two mines in Mexico, as well as 8 training academies and 18 R&D labs. Operations are divided into three Business Groups: Fluent, Vinyl and Fluor. Mexichem has annual revenues of US$7.2 billion and has been traded on the Mexican Stock Exchange for more than 30 years. The company is member of the Mexican Stock Exchange Sustainability Index and the sustainability emerging markets index FTSE4Good.