PepsiCo India partners N-Drip to help farmers

Food and beverages major PepsiCo India on Thursday announced a partnership with N-Drip, a manufacturer of gravity-powered micro-irrigation system, to help farmers in India increase water efficiency.

This is part of a global partnership between PepsiCo and N-Drip, aimed at increasing water efficiency across 10,000 hectares around the world by 2025, the company said in a statement.

N-Drip's technology has already been introduced in Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, and Rajasthan to improve water efficiency levels across thousands of hectares in the country by 2025, PepsiCo India added.

These states have begun to see evident results in the form of improved crop yields, reduced fertiliser usage, and an average reduction of 39 per cent water consumption compared to flood irrigation.

"The initial response to the pilot project has been quite encouraging.

"We are already seeing improved crop yields, reduced fertiliser usage, and an average reduction of 39 per cent water consumption compared to flood irrigation in states of Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, and Rajasthan," PepsiCo India Agro Director, Supply Chain, Pratap Bose said.

Being an agri-centric company at heart, he said, PepsiCo India - over the last 30-plus years - has been working towards increasing efficiency across its agri-supply chain to reduce water usage by providing alternatives to flood irrigation practices.

"The collaboration with N-Drip is another step in that direction," Bose added.

N-Drip chief executive officer Eran Pollak said the partnership with PepsiCo aims to remove barriers to access, introducing and implementing N-Drip technology to farmers in India.

"As PepsiCo sources crops from farms of all types and sizes, N-Drip's proprietary technology allows our partnership to make precise irrigation accessible to all types of farmers, from those with massive farms to those with one-acre plots," he added.

Pollak said based on the learning from the experience and practices of local farmers in the past two years of usage of the N-Drip system in various fields across Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, and Rajasthan, the company has been "able to modify and localise our solution, and create a perfect fit for the Indian market".

Israel-headquartered N-Drip's high-efficiency irrigation system is a replacement for flood or trench irrigation.

It is powered by gravity and harnesses the water-saving benefits of high-pressure drip irrigation but with low energy, operating and maintenance demands - making it more accessible to all types of farmers and nearly all types of crops, the statement said.

"Farmers using N-Drip routinely achieve significant water savings, see larger crop yields and reduce the need for expensive fertilisers," it added.