Hyderabad, Aug 3: Coca-Cola India, a leading beverage maker, in line with its efforts towards creating an Atmanirbhar Bharat, on Wednesday announced that its project ‘Unnati’ has helped empower and enable over 3.5 lakh fruit farmers across 12 states in the country in the past 10 years.
The project is part of Coca-Cola’s Fruit Circular Economy initiative, which is a key pillar of the Company’s ESG priorities Sustainable Agriculture.
Project Unnati aims to support the Indian agri-ecosystem by enhancing farming efficiency, strengthening forward linkages, and building food-processing capacity in the country.
Focused on five fruit varieties Mango, Apple, Orange, Grapes, Litchi, and sugarcane, the program is aimed at propelling the horticulture supply-chain and building agriculture production capacities across the country, the Company said in a release.
The adoption of Good Agricultural Practices (GAP) through Unnati projects across Tamil Nadu, Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh, Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh has accelerated fruit productivity by 5X via Ultra high density fruit plantation technology.
Coca-Cola’s ‘Meetha Sona Unnati’ program seeks to address challenges faced by small-scale sugarcane farmers, enhance their livelihoods, and promote climate-resilient sugarcane farming.
The projects also facilitate farmers’ access to enabling infrastructure via high-yielding planting material and Good Agriculture Practices (GAPS) such as ultra-high-density plantation (UHDP) which involves drip irrigation, on-site training, and farm supplement support.
These new technologies lead to a substantial increase in quality, productivity, and profitability per unit of land which further makes fruit cultivation lucrative.
Rajesh Ayapilla – Director-CSR and Sustainability for India and Southwest Asia (INSWA) at The Coca-Cola Company said, through project Unnati, our aim has been to elevate and enhance the livelihoods of these farmers by not only enabling them with advanced horticulture solutions, but also empowering them to substantially increase their incomes.
This is a step in line with the Government of India’s vision towards AtmaNirbhar Bharat, making the agrarian economy self-reliant.
Coca-Cola India took the first step towards creating a Fruit Circular Economy in India in 2011 with ‘Project Unnati Mango’ in Andhra Pradesh and then expanded to Unnati Orange in the year 2018 in Maharashtra, followed by Unnati Apple in Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir and eventually into Litchi and grapes over a decade.
The initiative has been widely applauded by state governments, the release added. (UNI)
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