Following precision drip irrigation company Netafim's successful community irrigation projects in India, the company has secured another mega deal, valued at some $85 million, to provide advanced irrigation systems to 35,000 farmers in the state of Karnataka, Netafim announced last week.
The deal encompasses three large-scale projects to build irrigation systems based on the model of community irrigation, supplying 66 villages and a 50,000-hectare (123,500 acre) area in Karnataka.
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Irrigation communities make it economically feasible to carry out comprehensive and large-scale infrastructure projects, allowing each farmer to benefit from a technologically advanced irrigation system that suits his needs.
"Especially in these days of global crisis, this new mega-deal in India represents a vote of confidence in Netafim, its solutions and accomplishments. The uniqueness of these projects is in their community model, which along with local government involvement enables a huge number of farmers and villages to improve their livelihoods. The Indian government has always been extremely supportive of the agricultural sector, and now more than ever this support is important for securing the economic stability of local farmers and food security in the country," said president and CEO of Netafim Gaby Miodownik.
"These projects deploy NetBeatTM systems for digital farming, which enables real-time control of the irrigation systems using cloud technologies and allows access from any mobile device. Netafim intends to expand the community irrigation project model to other countries characterized by a large number of small farmers," Miodownik said.
Netafim joined forces with India's Megha Engineering and Infrastructure Limited (MEIL) to deploy the projects over a two-year period, and supply technical and agronomic support for an additional five years.
Netafim will also train the farmers to operate the advanced systems. Crops planned for the area include onion, chili pepper, corn, peanuts, beans, and sunflowers.
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