Bayer Partners with ITC e-Choupal 4.0 to Support Farmers Across Karnataka

Crop Protection

* Farmers can order Bayer’s Crop Protection products on ITC’s e-Choupal 4.0 platform

* Partnership to benefit 42,000+ farmers in Mysore region

* Initiative to improve access to good-quality agri-inputs and timely agronomic advisory

Bayer CropScience Limited is partnering with ITC Limited’s Agri Business Division to extend the reach of its Crop Protection products through ITC’s e-Choupal 4.0 platform. The partnership has commenced as a pilot project in Mysore, Karnataka and will gradually be expanded to other geographies across India.

With Covid-19 disrupting farming operations and on-farm advisory, this initiative will help farmers avail agri-inputs and digital advisory on a timely basis. ITC & Bayer are jointly training and on-boarding retailers in the Mysore region, to cater to farmers’ orders placed through the e-Choupal 4.0 platform. Field Officers from both companies have also received extensive training on product knowledge and technical advisory to support farmers.

Over 42,000 ITC farmers, covering 60,000 hectares across 1,100 villages in Mysore region will benefit from the partnership with Bayer. Farmers can place their order for Bayer products through the e-Choupal 4.0 platform and track their orders. Farmers without access to smartphones can place their orders online with assistance from Bayer & ITC’s field staff or even place offline orders.

Speaking about the partnership with ITC, D. Narain, CEO & MD of Bayer CropScience Limited, said, “Farmers in India often struggle to get access to agri-inputs, training and advisory under one roof. Lack of modern technologies and good agricultural practices hamper crop productivity and farm profitability. At Bayer, we are looking at meaningful collaborations to create greater value for farmers and the entire agri eco-system. Bayer’s partnership with ITC aims to offer tailored solutions, enabling farmers to achieve better harvests and progress to sustainable agriculture. We also plan to leverage ITC’s extensive rural reach to create capacity building for adoption of greater product stewardship and traceability of produce.”

Elaborating on the partnership with Bayer, Sanjiv Rangrass of ITC Limited, who has been driving the

e-Choupal 4.0 initiative said, “While agronomic advisory is essential to the farmer, information on best practices alone is not sufficient to improve their profitability. Farmers routinely battle adulteration, product non-availability and arbitrary pricing. Consequently, they are not able to make informed purchasing decisions. Therefore, it is essential to provide farmers with access to the right set of products and services. ITC’s e-Choupal 4.0 platform aims at providing on-demand crop advisory linked to products & services across the value chain. ITC’s collaboration with Bayer will enable access to quality inputs by digitalizing the local marketplace eco-system for farmers. This will leverage Bayer’s expertise in agri-inputs and ITC’s deep-rooted linkages with farmers through the e-Choupal 4.0 platform, thereby creating value and a brand of trust for the farmers.”

Cisco expands campus; Likely to increase headcount

Cisco will be adding two additional office blocks totaling a floor area of 70,000 square feet. The expansion will happen around its 2.1 million square feet campus at Cessna Business Park on the Outer Ring Road in Bangalore.

This expansion might be by far the biggest in the commercial space market in this region in the last one year. Although Cisco declined to comment on the expansion, it issued a statement saying, "We have designated Bangalore as our Globalization Centre East and indicated that we will have 10,000-12,000 employees based here over the next three to five years. The idea is for 20 percent of the top talent in Cisco to be based here." At present, Cisco has 4000 Indian employees.

Agencies

Intel invests big in US; Just as others cut costs

Chip giant Intel is swimming against the tide. At a time when most of the companies are cutting back on their expenses in the U.S., Intel is investing massively in that country. The company on February 10 announced plans to invest $7 billion over the next two years to expand and transform three U.S. manufacturing plants. With this initiative, Intel aims to outpace rival Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) in its core PC business, reported BusinessWeek.

The company plans to begin shipping in volume the world's first microprocessors created at the atomic 32-nanometer level-transistors so small that 4 million of them could fit on the period at the end of this sentence, as early as this fall. Intel plans to begin retooling chipmaking plants in Arizona, New Mexico, and Oregon, where a total of 7,000 people will be employed.

By shifting to a more efficient manufacturing process, Intel hopes to sell chips to consumer electronics, cell phones, and other Internet-connected devices. Such chips could substantially lower development costs for Nokia (NOK), Samsung, Sony (SNE), and other manufacturers struggling to outdo each other with cutting-edge TVs, phones, and other devices.
"We're investing in America to keep Intel and our nation at the forefront of innovation," said Intel CEO Paul S. Otellini. "The chips that the new fabs produce will become the basic building blocks of the digital world, generating economic returns far beyond our industry," he added.

Intel executives had been signaling for weeks that the chipmaker remained on track to spend $5.2 billion, or roughly the same as it spent on capital improvements in 2008, to move to the 32-nanometer manufacturing process.

Agencies