Dhanuka Agri introduce two new proprietary herbicide formulations

Dhanuka Agritech Ltd is planning to introduce two new proprietary herbicide formulations belonging to Nissan Chemical Industries.

"We have completed two out of the three-year data generation trials that are a prerequisite for registering the products here. Since 2011 would be the third year, we are hopeful of launching them in 2012,” said Mr R.G. Agarwal, Chairman of the Delhi-based company, which claims to be the largest domestic branded pesticide formulation marketer after Bayer Crop Science, Syngenta and Rallis India.

Dhanuka has previously tied up with Nissan Chemical to exclusively market quizalofop-p-ethyl – a herbicide used against grassy weeds in soyabean, cotton, groundnut and potato – in India under the Japanese firms own ‘Targa Super brand.

"In the case of the proposed new herbicides, too, we will be importing the formulations in bulk for re-packaging and distribution here. One of them is a chemical against Cyperus weeds in sugarcane and the other is for grassy weeds in oilseeds and pulses,” Mr Agarwal told Business Line, while refusing to give further details, since “they are still in the registration trials stage” and “we dont want the competition to know”.

Dhanuka Agritech has similar arrangements for marketing the products of other multinationals, including Sumitomo Chemicals (for validamycin), Mitsui Chemicals (ethofenprox) and Hokko Chemical Industry (kasugamycin) and FMC Corporation (carfentrazone-ethyl) and Chemtura Corporation (carboxin) of the US.

In some of these, Dhanuka is importing the bulk technical material and manufacturing the formulations under its own brands such as Sheathmar (validamycin), ‘Nukil (ethofenprox) and ‘Kasu-B (kasugamycin). In the others, the brands themselves belong to the foreign firm as in Vitavax (carboxin) or Dhanuka co-markets the product (carfentrazone-ethyl) in its own label (‘Nabood) side by side with that of the multinationals (‘Affinity).

Network advantage

"Our advantage is the network of 6,000 dealers and 50,000 retailers that we have, which reaches more than one crore farmers. Many multinationals, particularly from Japan, find it easier to go through us rather than establish their own distribution channels,” claimed Mr Agarwal.

insecticides currently accounted for about 65 per cent of Dhanuka Agritechs topline, with herbicides contributing 20 per cent and fungicides and plant growth regulators the balance 15 per cent.

"But I see the share of herbicides going up, as it is the segment that is growing the fastest. The main reason for this is labour shortages, which have increased manual weeding costs in recent years,” he added.