Greaves Cotton boosts farm mechanisation in India
Greaves Cotton, a leading engineering company that makes a range of engines and heavy equipment, will grow its presence in farm equipment and implements business offering a complete range of solutions. The company is focussing on the farm sector with investments in R&D, plant and people to support the growing farm sector in India. With significant headroom to grow farm productivity in India, Greaves Agri aims to boost mechanisation and reduce dependency on human labour in farming.
Greaves Cotton, under its Farm Equipment Division, recently unveiled a new power tiller, developed using its own R & D capabilities, under the brand name ‘The Bahubali’. It is priced in the range of Rs 1.56 lakh-Rs 1.76 lakh and powered by a new 14 HP engine. Building on the ‘Made in India, Made for India’ vision, ‘The Bahubali’ is the first ever fully locally designed and developed power tiller by Greaves Cotton in India. With the new high power 14HP engine and heavy-duty performance, it offers best-inclass ploughing performance with higher tilling depth, excellent fuel efficiency and a rugged body for long life.
“We provide a wide range of products and services to the farmers to help them right from ploughing to harvesting,” Nagesh Basavanhalli, Managing Director and CEO, said at the company’s plant at Ranipet, near Chennai. “With the Indian economy rapidly evolving, there is a need to make efficient use of farm machinery to improve land productivity. Greaves is working closely with farmers and FPO’s to understand their needs and create farm solutions that promise more yield per acre of farm, especially when we see shrinking landholdings with rapid increase in population & shortage of farm labour in India,” he said.
“We offer solutions across all stages -- irrigation to soil preparation, planting, plant protection, harvesting and to postharvest cycle. Our product range includes 6 types of power tillers, 6 types of rotavators, 2 types of power weeders. Our objective is to position ourselves as a complete solution provider,” M Mohanan, President, Farm Equipment Business, said. The company’s major target segments for farm equipment business are small and medium farms, gardens and landscaping categories.
“As a full range player in the farm equipment space, Greaves Agri continues to develop equipment to support the farmers in each step of the crop cycle. We will continue to build on the ‘Make for India’ vision and plan to introduce more superior quality, reliable products in the market. Having grown from a small equipment player to a large farm solutions and services company, Greaves Agri has products for each stage of the crop cycle covering a wide variety of functionality for the farm sector,” Mohanan said.
The company has a capacity to produce 6000-7000 units of power tillers and 10,000 units of other farm equipment and implements. All these are made at its Ranipet factory.
Mohanan said the company has been strengthening its dedicated R&D facility and state-of-the-art large farm equipment factory in Ranipet. It has also set up a testing and validation facility inside the factory and will also create capabilities for real-world usage pattern tests across various terrains.