The year 2015 hasn't been a great one for the industry overall. How did your organisation fare in this year?
The last two years have been quite tough for the farmers, due to insufficient rainfall. Owing to this, farmers faced cash flow crises, which ultimately had adverse effect on the farm equipment industry. In these tough market situations, we grew our market share in FY15 by 1.3 percent and maintained market share in FY16. Our innovative product range and back-to basic strategy has been the driving force in our growth. The downfall in overall tractor industry and tough market conditions have helped us in re-looking at our systems and improving their efficiency.
The India Meteorological Department (IMD) has predicted a good monsoon for this year. This obviously augurs well for the farm equipment industry. How do you plan to leverage on this? What kind of growth projections do you have for 2016-17?
IMD's prediction of favourable monsoon will definitely have positive impact not only on the tractor industry but on the Indian economy as a whole. It will also boost the sentiments of farmers and their financiers. Therefore, we hope that Q3 of 2016 will see an improvement in the cash flow of farmers, which will result in a growth of 15-20 percent in the tractor industry.
The Union Budget 2016-17 emphasises on the rural and agricultural sectors. Can you please tell what effects this will have on the farm equipment sector in this year?
Indian government is taking various steps for protecting interests of farmers through various initiatives such as ‘Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana' that supports ailing farmers and provide them with appropriate aid. The Union Budget has also emphasised on improving irrigation. These steps at the structural level are commendable. However, it will take slightly longer time for the results to be seen on the ground.
Please tell us about the emerging technologies in this sector that are gaining popularity.
Agriculture is a composite of various activities such as land preparation, seeds, fertiliser, irrigation, harvesting, processing, storage and transportation. Developments are taking place in all these spheres and if adopted, these will lead to enhancing farm productivity. A new technology has also emerged in the area of paddy cultivation. Coming to farm mechanisation, modern machines are becoming popular in the area of planting, reaping and soil preparation. However Indian farmers are slow to adopt modern machines and so the transition would be slow but decisive. As a solution, the government and agricultural universities need to join hands with the industry in propagation and adoption of new technology and practices.
(Continued on next page)
