Godrej Agrovet for contract farming of maize in Punjab

Chandigarh, Aug 11 (UNI) To encourage diversification of agriculture, the Punjab government today approved a project of Godrej Agrovet Ltd to encourage maize cultivation in the state, so as to break the paddy-wheat cycle.

The project would associate with 10,000 farmers for contract farming of maize in 20,000 hectares of land. The project would meet the annual requirement (capacity) of the poultry feed unit of the company, which is 75,000 MT per annum.

The project would also associate with 800 poultry farms each having capacity of 5,000 birds for sourcing required number of broilers for the company's meat processing plant.

This project was approved in a meeting of the state Empowered Committee held here today under the chairmanship of Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh.

This project would provide 5000 direct jobs and equal number of indirect jobs in semi urban and rural areas.

Another related project given approval was the Godrej Aadhaar Retail Initiative. Under this project, Gudrej Agrovet Ltd would open 150 stores by March 2009 with an investment of Rs 77.50 crore.

Nine such outlets are already functional in Punjab.

Godrej Aadhaars would be located in the semi urban and rural areas and in catchments of 50-60 villages.

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