Kisan Biotech eyes Rs 20 cr turnover

Kisan Plant Biotech Limited, which has been developing and selling cloned saplings of long-term timber trees mangiem and teak, has also started selling mahogany clones.

Besides, it has opened a separate division for manufacturing and selling 'Jeevan Chetan' and 'Vermi Grow' brands of organic fertilisers.

The firm, having touched a turnover of Rs 12 crore last fiscal (2004-05), a re-doing of 2003-04 turnover, is targeting Rs 20 crore in the current fiscal, with stress on extending maximum help and service to farmer-customers. The company aims at earning Rs 10 crore from plant clones and Rs 10 crore from organic fertilisers.

"The company has adopted direct marketing in pushing off its fertilisers as in the case of cloned plants. The field trials showed that farmers reaped 30 bags of paddy, with increased quality and taste, per acre in three months as against the earlier crop average of 20 bags. Our experts developed formulae for organic fertilisers by mixing vermi, neem cake, phopho bacteria, bone mill and trychoderma in various combinations and ratios," Kisan Biotech general manager S Sridhar told Business Standard.

"The firm sold 20 lakh plant clones to farmers all over the country last fiscal. The company has not yet considered a buy-back policy in respect of clones. A farmer can plant up to 600 clones per acre. Even if 200 plants fail to grow due to adverse conditions, which are beyond farmers' control, he can make Rs 36 lakh on the remaining 400 trees (Rs 9,000 per tree) in 12 years," he said.

Kisan Biotech recently extended its operations to Rajasthan. Orissa contributed maximum to their business, followed by Maharashtra and Gujarat.

The company is currently operating 35 branches, including 10 for selling organic fertilisers, in Andhra Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Orissa, Maharashtra, Gujarat, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Rajasthan.

"This year, we are concentrating on Andhra Pradesh, which has only three branches. It is now ready to open six branches in Andhra, including two depots for storing and selling Jeevan Chetan and Vermi Grow," Sridhar said.

The company's strategy of taking the number of branches to 100 in the near future has suffered a setback as the segment has not received any subsidy or encouragement from the state or central governments. The company would soon take up the issue with the state government," he said.