Thursday 27 August 2020
Last update on Thursday, August 27, 2020 At 9:13 AM
Netafim, the pioneer of drip irrigation systems wins $ 85 million contract for 35,000 farmers in India. The originality lies in the concept of "irrigation community", namely the pooling of infrastructure in order to generate economies of scale.
This new contract includes three large projects which involve the construction of irrigation systems for 66 villages and 35,000 farmers on an area of 50,000 hectares in the state of Karnataka.
These projects are an extension of the Ramthal community irrigation project in Karnataka state, which Netafim completed in 2017, and four other projects currently underway in Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh, for which Netafim was awarded the contracts in 2018.
Community-based irrigation methods provide a suitable solution for small farmers. The idea is to connect a number of farmers by giving them access to the necessary infrastructure and technologies.
Thus each farmer benefits from the tool adapted to his needs and the collaborative structure makes it possible to have an effective global system while lowering the individual cost and pooling resources and technical knowledge.
For these community projects, Netafim works closely with the government but also with the Indian infrastructure company, Megha Engineering & Infrastructures Ltd. (MEIL).
This project will also train farmers to operate advanced systems to cultivate a wide variety of crops, and mentor them for several years to ensure the success of the operation and return on the investment.
As part of its strategy to overcome the economic crisis, the Government of India is investing huge sums of money in agricultural projects that will improve the livelihoods of farmers.
Netafim intends to expand the community irrigation project model to other countries that also have large numbers of small farmers, said its CEO Gaby Miodownik.
The scale of community irrigation projects won so far includes 202 villages in India and over 97,000 farmers in over 100,000 hectares of land. The transition to precision irrigation is expected to double the yield of areas affected by the project, improve the quality of production and save about 40% in water and fertilizer consumption.
For the record, the company has 33 subsidiaries and 17 production plants around the world, which offer “tailor-made” irrigation and fertilization solutions to millions of farmers, ranging from smallholders to large-scale producers, in more than 110 countries.
Source: Times of Israel
