Coca-Cola, Jain Irrigation To Invest Rs 50 Crore To Scale Up Mango Farming

Hindustan Coca-Cola Beverages Pvt Ltd (HCCBPL) and Jain Irrigation have announced a plan to scale up their initiative for mango production, targeting involvement of 25,000 farmers and entailing an investment of Rs 50 crore over 10 years.

The project, called project Unnati, targets mango farmers with the aim of increasing the yield.

The first phase of the project was launched in 2011 with an investment of $2 million and has covered nearly 4,000 farmers till date, the companies said in a joint statement. It established 200 demo farms in the mango-growing Chittoor region in Andhra Pradesh and covered around 4,000 farmers.

After achieving the desired results in Phase 1, HCCBPL made the announcement of scaling the initiative fivefold, reaching 25,000 farmers in Phase 2 at an investment of Rs 50 crore over the next 10 years. The second phase of the project will identify nearly 25,000 farmers covering around 50,000 acres and support them in adopting the Ultra High Density Plantation (UHDP) technology.

The UHDP technique enables plantation of nearly 600 trees in an acre, instead of the conventional method of planting 40 trees, thereby increasing yield and improving the livelihood of the farmers. The agricultural practices under Project Unnati offer the basis to improve mango productivity and hence, enhance supply of mango pulp for the industry.

While Unnati Phase 1 has successfully trained farmers on UHDP technology and encouraged them to adopt the new technology, Unnati Phase 2 is built around building deeper relationship and engagements with farmers.

The project will mainly harness higher productivity of potential of mango farms for making HCCBPL’s mango drinks Maaza and Minute Maid, T. Krishnakumar, chief executive of HCCBPL, said. He also added that the scaled up initiative is expected to deliver close to 300,000 tonnes of fruit by the 2022-23.

Over two-thirds of the 5,000-crore-a-year Indian juice drinks market consists of mango drinks alone. If managed on a long-term, sustainable basis, juice drinks offer a tremendous business opportunity.

HCCBPL is the largest bottling partner of The Coca-Cola Company in India and is part of the Atlanta-based firm's Bottling Investment Group.
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