Helping potato farmers deliver sustainable, quality crops in India
The potato industry works to move farmers from traditional growing methods to smarter & more sustainable, high yield and quality production, with a focus on protecting the environment.
Yara works with farmers and potato processors not only to improve potatoes yield and quality, but also to provide support to the processors and food companies to reduce significant amount of carbon impacts with trustworthy traceability to the food chain and consumers alike.
Today, some of the main challenges the potato market faces are:
- Potato processors need to secure supply and meet consumer's demand for a fully traceable and sustainably produced products
- Due to given unpredictable weather events and low productivity of smallholder farmers and the need to move to more sustainable production methods to protect the environment
- Crop vulnerability and potato price fluctuations making profits difficult for smallholder growers
- A growing demand for increase in yield output via correct crop programs and sustainable practices in water and soil management
Joydeb Paul
Senior Manager, Global Account Management
To learn more about our food chain partnerships in the potato sector, please send me an email.
Building partnerships with global food companies allows us to:
- Reach contract farmers on a large scale with crop nutrition knowledge
- Enhance sustainability and traceability – key requirements farmers and food companies are facing
- Increase the profitability of the farmer through best crop practices
The Indian potato farmer
Upendra Pal Singh is a resident of Kutukpur village, District Firozabad, Uttar Pradesh. He grew up on a farm where his father used traditional farming practices for decades. Upendra was inspired through learning to take their farming methods to new heights working in partnership with food chain companies to optimize their output.
Watch the video below to see the full story:
Upendra is a leading farmer in his community, who look to him for best crop practices and knowledge. Working closely together with Yara Agra Agronomist Dr. Kushal Singh, Upendra describes how partnering with Yara has benefited his farm, his crops, his livelihood and even his family.
“Yara has guided us with this one-of-a-kind solution on how we can effectively use its products to get maximum output even after minimizing the input. With this, we are reaping benefits financially.”
Indian agriculture is confronted with several key challenges
There are over 140 million smallholder farmers in India. The yield gap between global production and Indian production levels is on average 40%. Partnering with food companies is important because they work with clusters of farmers and in this way Yara can reach a far greater number of smallholders with knowledge and crop programs.
Yara believes that with the correct nutrient programs to support yield and quality there is an opportunity to address the yield gap and help farmers to achieve a better price for their crops. We adopt a Field to Fork approach where partnerships across the chain from farmer to processor, and food and service companies can support total production. To deliver across the entire food value chain in India partnerships are essential to meet the growing demand to sustainably feed the world.
Furthermore, soil health is a major issue in India, both through overuse and low nutrient use efficiency. To address this we deploy extensive soil testing and a holistic approach to crop nutrition and sustainable farming practices in the programs we run with the food companies in India.
Based on our local and global crop knowledge we can offer a win-win situation to both food company, potato processors and farmer in terms of:
- Higher profits for farmers by using Yara premium solutions
- Less waste as crop quality and crop specifications are met
- Help processors and food companies to reduce their scope-3 carbon emissions
- Meeting consumer demand on superopr quality, traceability, and environment friendly products.
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