AgroPages-Dhanuka plans to double plant capacity by Q3-Agricultural news

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Dhanuka to reap rewards of niche focus, new products

Dhanuka Agritech is doubling the manufacturing of its wide range of plant-protection chemicals in the third quarter of this year to tap growing demand.

The firm is also launching for the first time in India three types of herbicides and one fungicide simultaneously.

“Our fourth manufacturing facility in Keshwana in Rajasthan in which we have invested Rs 50 crore, will start commercial production of a range of crop protection chemicals from the third quarter of this year,” MK Dhanuka, MD of Dhanuka Agritech, said.

The firm at present manufactures a wide-range of crop-protection chemicals, including herbicides, insecticides, fungicides, plant growth regulators or stimulants in various forms such as liquid, dust, powder and granules.

These are produced at its three plants at Gurgaon in Haryana, Sanand in Gujarat and Udhampur in Jammu and Kashmir. The combined capacity of the three plants is 5,000 tonne of powder chemicals and 5,000 kilo litres of chemicals.

“With the opening of the new state-of-the-art automated facility, the production will be doubled to 10,000 tonne of powder and 10,000 kilo litres of chemicals,” Dhanuka said.

He said for the first time in India, the firm has launched Sempra, a herbicide for the sugarcane growing farmers of Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Haryana, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu.

Sempra is a product from Japanese Nissan Chemical Industries. With 83 product portfolio covering almost the entire range of crops and crop protection requirements, Dhanuka Agritech has technical tie-ups with four American and Japanese companies each.

“This new Sempra herbicide kills cyperus rotundus which grows in sugarcane fields, increasing the yield by about 7-12 per cent in an acre,” Chandra Shukla, vice president, business development at Dhanuka Agritech said.

He said the new product has been introduced in the market after carrying out 1,200 test demonstrations with 25,000 farmers across the country. It was also evaluated and recommended for use by national research institutes and universities such as Vasantdada sugar institute, Tamil Nadu agricultural university, regional research station in Hisar of Haryana agricultural university and others.

Shukla said sugarcane accounts for about 7 per cent of the total volume of agricultural output in the country. He pointed out that India was the second largest producer of sugar after Brazil and produced 278 lakh tonnes of sugar last year. “It is estimated that by 2030, the national consumption of sugar will shoot up to around 330 lakh tonnes,” Shukla said.

He said for two decades no herbicide for sugarcane was introduced in India and farmers manually removed cyperus weeds from fields.