Indore Biotech: Empowering The Agriculture Industry With Organic Fertilizers

Arun Dike

MD

Arun Dike

Although organic agriculture is an age-old practice in India, it was lesser implemented in India in last few decades. Farmers till yesterday, were more reliant on chemical fertilizers, but recently awareness is growing to reduce the use of chemical fertilizers as they are facing hazards while using them. With an initiative to empower the farmers in this area, Indore Biotech manufactures biofertilizers, biopesticides, and agricultural inputs for them.

The company is proud to produce the best quality of products that have been certified by different Government accreditations like NSIC, ECOCERT, BIS, ISO, and others. It caters its products to various Indian states such as Orissa, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Maharashtra, etc. along with a few private sectors in states like Punjab, Haryana, Rajasthan, and others. Having branches in about seven different states and channel partners in four Indian states, Indore Biotech is determined to bring a change in the agriculture industry.

“Our ideology sets us apart. We have actively taken several social initiatives like promoting organic farming through our products as well as

training farmers through charts, books and multimedia resources on their in-house farm of around eight acres which depicts the model of an ideal self-sustained Indian village” says Mr. Arun Dike, the MD of the company. His vision to promote the idea of a holistic approach for the self-sustained life of farmers has brought real change in the farming sector. Arun introduced vermiculture and mycorrhiza technologies for the first time in Madhya Pradesh in 1992 and 2004 respectively.

His initial experiments with pheromone traps, a few inoculants such as phosphate solubilizing bacteria and rhizobia, helped him to purchase his first farm that received financial support from NABARD. Indore Biotech also under his guidance has been active in rural socio-economic development and women-empowerment by providing employment opportunities to rural women and promoting the cottage industry. “About 80% of our workforce comprises of women. Our initiatives have attracted visits from several international delegations from countries like Sri Lanka, Sweden, Tur-key, Uganda,” Arun adds.

Indore Biotech strives to combine traditional agricultural methods with emerging technologies to confront the shortcomings of current organic fertilizers. Farmers nowadays face a problem with regular granule-based fertilizers that keeps clogging of drips. The company thus has launched a new range of water-soluble products in the market to address this issue. All of these products pass through strict quality assurance tests. “Our focus is on making the products easy to use and effective.

We take regular feedback from our consumers and address their concerns thereby updating the quality of our products accordingly,” Arun confirms. The company is also designing new products to improve the biodiversity of beneficial microbial flora and the fertility of the soil. It also has a state-of-the-art facility for mass production of plant beneficial microbes and formulations thereof. Equipped with industrial-scale fermenters, industrial centrifuge, spray dryer, and laboratories, the manufacturing unit is well skilled for quality control, maintenance, and proper storage of products.

Indore Biotech’s DSIR accredited R&D department focuses on introducing the latest and innovative products and technologies along with scaling them up to get benefitted economically. The company is now aiming to export its products to several Eastern Europe-an, African, and Southeast Asian countries. Its approach to combine tradition-al knowledge with modern technologies has led to many new products such as encapsulated biofertilizers, Nanotechnology-based products, and others. While mentioning their plans, Arun says, “Our future vision also includes the development of regional manufacturing units in various parts of India to address regional requirements and improve logistics.”