Contract farming projects begins in HP

Shimla, Jul 6 (UNI) Himalayan International, a Himachal Pradesh based company, has gone in for a Rs 3.24 crore contract farming vegetable project in Poanta Sahib area of Sirmaur district with financial back-up provided by NABARD.

Manmohan Malik, Himalayan International Chairman, said the commercial production of the vegetables would start by January 2009 on 260 hectares of land that has been selected for the project.

The company expects to achieve an annual production of 3,170 tonnes of vegetables under the project, he added.

Mr Malik said the fresh vegetable grown under the project would be exported to the Gulf countries and marketed in big metropolitan cities of the country, depending upon the demand for the vegetables.

Only those vegetables would be grown which have a demand in the international market, he said.

The chairman disclosed that his company has an agreement with Reliance Agri Fresh and Walmart to sell vegetable through their outlets in metro cities.

Negotiations for tapping the international markets with the companies is going on, he added.

He said about 150 families had been selected for the contract farming project and factors like soil fertility, irrigation facilities and road connectivity were also taken into consideration.

UNI AS HS MP HT1718