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Potential for Alternative Crops in Tea Estates

Amalgamated Plantations - A Case Study


Kolkata – April 8th 2015
Company History

Experience
Experience and
and expertise
expertise in
in Tea
Tea Cultivation
Cultivation and
and Manufacture
Manufacture for
for over
over 140
140 years
years
1873
Amalgamated
Plantations (P) Ltd.
1983
2007

1976

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Company Profile
Company Profile

2nd Largest 37 Million Kgs 31,000 employees


Tea Producer in of Tea 21,000
India shareholders

No. of Tea Estates: 25

Total Grant Area in Ha: 23092


21 4
Total Area under Tea in Ha: 14304

20262 12282 2830 2022


Grant Area Area Under Tea Grant Area Area Under Tea
in Ha In Ha in Ha In Ha
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Rationale: Foray into agribusiness activity

Assam - Government permission to use 5% of the total land holdings in the tea estate to pursue
multi-crop cultivation. Similar permission issued by WB Govt on March 30th 2015 3%

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A Paradigm Shift : Beyond Tea to Agribusiness

Economic Impact Social Impact Environmental Impact

• Employment generation • Creation of • Sustainability of


and wealth creation for sustainable livelihoods ‘natural assets’
the local communities • Increase in Incomes • Maintain the frail
• Topline growth for APPL ecological balance
• Increased ability to
– To look for options • No further degradation
purchase the ‘basic
other than tea for
needs’ of living of ‘nature capital’
boosting revenues and
(education, healthcare,
growth and improve
etc) – improved quality
profitability
of life
• To insulate the financial
health of the tea gardens
from the vagaries of the
cyclical fluctuations of
the tea market

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The Planning Horizon
Horizon 5
Commercialization

Horizon 4
Experiments +  How can we add
Extension 2 further value
through branding?
Horizon 3  How can we
Experiments + differentiate
 Can key marketing through
Extension 1 channels be innovation?
activated?
Value  Can we activate
Horizon 2 long term
What are the issues contracts with
Experiments 
buyers?
with scaling
cultivation?  What are the
 Do the crops grow? value addition
 Can productivity be
Horizon 1  What could be
possible production
enhanced with opportunities?
better practices?  How can
Business Case costs? productivity be
 What marketing
 What alternate
 What could be the channels can we further enhanced?
models could be potential yields? specifically target?
more attractive than  What are the  What prices can we
tea? operational / logistical realise?
 Could we create a issues?  How can we
potentially viable  What could be the improve the
integrated alternate possible channels and business model?
business? potential for sales?

Time
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Agri-business: Experiments

Black Pepper, Turmeric, Floriculture


Ginger, Vegetables, Fruits,
Assam Lemon, Arecanut,
Bhut jholokia, Bamboo,
Rubber, Dairy, Fishery,
Floriculture, Bhut jholokia
Medicinal and Aromatic
Herbs, HVT

Fishery

Dairy
Marketability
Commercial
and Overall
Scalability
economics

Black pepper

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Roadmap for Knowledge and Skill building

EXPERIMENTS EXTENSIONS COMMERCIALIZATION

• Independent SBU
• CIFA, AAU, Raha
• NFDB
• Dr MN Venugopal
• Spice Research Best-in-Class
Institute
• Exposure visits
Knowledge & Skill

Building • Commercializing by
Critical benchmarking to best-in-
Knowledge class across the world and
• AAU Professors Components incorporating forward
• Local Farmers looking PoPs and other
• Scaling-up to the next practices at critical mass.
Developing threshold of land
allocation by getting
Knowledge
best-in-class
Base consultants from an
India perspective
• Local inputs from farmers and Agri
University Professors to build a
baseline scenario and kick start
small experimental crops for
production
Time (3 - 5 years)

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Black Pepper: Journey so far..

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Black Pepper: Challenges, Impact and Strategic Initiatives

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Black Pepper on Shade Trees

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Black Pepper on Shade Trees

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Black Pepper: Nursery

BP Nursery

Rapid Multiplication Plot (RMP)

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Black Pepper: Propagation Methods

Serpentine Pepper Propagation

In-situ Pepper Propagation

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Black Pepper: Propagation Method

Rapid Multiplication System (RMS) Vertical Multiplication System (VMS)

Closed Multiplication System (CMS) Open Multiplication System (OMS)


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Black pepper: Nursery

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Pepper Thekken: Trials

Normal Pepper Pepper Thekken

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Bush Pepper

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Aquaculture: Journey so far..

In the Year 2013, APPL signed a MoU with CIFA ( Central Institute of Freshwater Aquaculture), an
ICAR institute located at Bhubaneswar for multiplying authority of an improved variety of Rahu fish
called “Jayanti Rahu” and become the first authorized center for breeding of Jayanti Rahu fish in
the NE region.

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Aquaculture: Intangible benefits

• Creating water bodies is the mantra to mitigate the effects


of climate change

• Improves the micro-climate of the area

• Water conservation

• Positive effects on tea yields

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Aquaculture: Challenges
Challenges
•High mortality
•Extreme weather condition
•Low yield
•Alleged Theft
•Non availability of good quality fish seed at the right time, of
right size and right quantity

Biophysical constraints Environmental constraints


•Acidic soil – Low soil ph 4.5 to 5.5 •Day length is shorter
•Low water ph ranging from 6 to 6.5 •Less no of culture months.
•Mostly sandy soil. Water holding capacity •Winter sets in from mid-Oct, with very low
of soil is less. temp during the winter months
•Ground water has high content of iron. •Heavy rainfall during monsoon which leaches
•Scarcity of ground/river water during the bases, making soil less fertile
winter months, which becomes a costly •High humidity depletes the oxygen availability
phenomenon. in pond water and poor shelf life of feed
ingredients
•More no of cloudy days also hinders fish
productivity

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Aquaculture: Nonoi TE

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Aquaculture: Powai TE

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Aquaculture: A haul of table sized fish

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Eco-hatchery unit at Hathikuli TE

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Mola Fish: Trial

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Agri Business: Socio-economic impact

Employment Generation - A total of 9.76 lakhs mandays has been created till date for
agri-business operations, wealth creation worth Rs 7.6 cr

The Ripple Effect


Encouraged by the success story of APPL aquaculture, workers within the estate and
villagers from the nearby areas are also developing fishery ponds on their private land –
194 families, 21 Ha
21000 pepper saplings distributed – revenue potential of Rs 90 lakhs

“Young Minds” Effect


A total of 860 agri and fishery under and post graduate students have attended practical
knowledge transfer programmes for aquaculture and pepper package of practices.

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Agri-business: Challenges and Mitigation Steps

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Agri-Business – Current Status

Extensive plantation in all tea gardens with a target to


cover 100% of all shade trees - 700,000 trees.
Black Pepper
Black pepper nurseries established in all estates to
ensure continuous supply of saplings.

Largest organized player of fishery in the corporate


sector of North-East.

149 hectares of land, 6 Eco hatcheries, 150 MT of table Fishery


fish and 200m of quality Carp fish spawn in 2012-2013.

Dairy – supplementary benefit of cow dung as organic manure and urine as bio-pesticide

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Thank

You

Dairy – supplementary benefit of cow dung as organic manure and urine as bio-pesticide

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