The global agrochemical industry has managed to register a steady growth despite the many challenges over the last two years. Albeit the multiple avatars of COVID along with the ongoing geo-political challenges, viz. Ukraine-Russia war, and the US-China trade war, have posed as major concerns globally, the world has continued to steadfastly recover and rebuild itself.

An important thing to take note of is that the focus for most economies has been realigned from ‘One Global Market’ to fostering and strengthening regional blocks and domestic markets. As a result, the governments across the globe have been prioritising to bolster their own national food and energy security, and self-sufficiency.

Governments of major economies have been focusing on building strong internal ecosystems that can support their GDP growth ambitions, with minimal reliance on external factors. The Indian government has been proactively supporting the manufacturing industry.

The Indian government is addressing these challenges through multiple measures to encourage the growth of agrochemical manufacturing in the country. One of the key preambles in the recent budget discussions was working towards an ‘Atmanirbhar Bharat’ supported by the Make in India initiative. The emphasis was on veering the role of India in the global supply chain:

• From a raw material supplier to a value-added product supplier – To reduce the exports of our natural resources and import back the value-added products. Instead, we need to focus on boosting the exports of the value-added products.

• Shift from being looked at as a “Consumer Economy” to a balanced “Producer - Consumer economy”.

Both these role-shifts will primarily pivot on the Make in India initiative supported by the thrust on the PLI (Production Linked Incentive) scheme. This initiative has been proposed with the vision of further underpinning the establishment of an ecosystem which is conducive to growth in the manufacturing sector along with the growth of MSMEs, supported by investments by large-scale enterprises and Public Private Partnership (PPP) projects. The initiatives discussed in the recent budget are centred around the objective of increasing the contribution of the manufacturing sector to the nation’s GDP from what is currently 15%.

India’s large young working population, in addition to our natural resources which can be used as raw material bases, are few of the many valuable assets that we need to leverage.

Furthermore, the Prime Minister has proposed a ‘Zero Defect and Zero Effect’ Ideology. Zero Defect – High quality compliance and zero defects of the goods manufactured in the country. Zero Effect – Least impact on the environment from effluents and emissions from the manufacturing sector.

The government is committed to building the capabilities to support the regional manufacturing ecosystem through several investments in logistics capabilities (strengthen rail connectivity to manufacturing hubs), supporting investments in R&D centres (for Innovation and value addition) and SEZ (Special Economic Zones) reforms to boost exports.

How Coromandel is planning to leverage growth:

Ever since its inception, Coromandel has always been committed to the wellbeing of the farming community. The Murugappa Group has always believed in the principle that “What is good for the farmers, is good for the Nation and What is Good for the Nation will be good for us.”

Coromandel has a strong presence in the manufacture of agri inputs including fertilisers and pesticides. We operate several technical and formulations plants in India, producing Active Ingredients and several types of formulations. We provide high quality agrochemicals to Indian farmers and export to global markets as well. We also have a very strong presence in biopesticides manufacturing through our Neem extraction facility in Thyagavalli, Tamil Nadu which is the world’s largest plant for Aza extraction.

Driven by the group’s vision and the Make in India initiative of the government we continue to take various steps to strengthen our manufacturing footprint across the following areas - Core competitiveness and sustainability.

Cost competitiveness – With a focus to bring down the costs, we have been working on backward integration for key intermediates. We are also improving the conversion efficiencies through automation of critical processes in the plants. In order to bring in consistency in process ops, we are instrumenting and automating the traditional production methods, thereby building safe systems. Flexibility in production is being built-in through development of multi-purpose and multi-product plants.

Sustainability: Sustainability has been a key focus area with several initiates for greener processes, improved safety, and reliability.

• Investments in environment friendly management systems, state-of-the-art R&D facility that enables the establishment of inherently safer and greener processes.

• Safety in operations through investments in people, process and technology.

• Improved reliability through the standardization of process operations, equipment, and building in appropriate spares in the system.

Coromandel strongly believes in building an organization that is primarily process oriented. Towards this, we have instituted a team for total quality management and business excellence to focus on development of internal processes and systems to keep pace with the ever-growing demands from our customers.

As a result of our continuous efforts and initiatives all our manufacturing sites are well prepared and equipped to handle any situation. This was demonstrated recently when we clocked around 90% production uptime during the COVID pandemic.

The company is planning for a multipurpose plant for the manufacture of more technical items which will enhance its presence in key chemistries and enhance its portfolio. We are also considering adding a state-of-the-art formulation facility to aid the increasing demand in Indian and export markets. These initiatives are aligned with the global trends and will contribute to the nation’s progress towards becoming an agrochemical manufacturing giant.

Coromandel has always been and will continue to be guided by our group’s philosophy that “No man you transact shall lose, then you will not”. We believe that these initiatives will help support the farming community both in India and globally, by incorporating cost effective and sustainable solutions to crop protection.