The city-based Nandan Agro Farms Private Limited has forged an alliance with ICICI Lombard General Insurance company to provide crop insurance for Safed Musli, a medicinal plant, growers in the state.
The six-year-old Nadan Agro has been aggressively promoting the Safed Musli cultivation through consultancy services with an assurance to the farming community that the product has a good market potential in both India and abroad.
According to B Jaya Kumar, the director of the company, the medicinal plant cultivation is now spread over 500 acres in the state including its own farm of 100 acres.
However, Nandan Agro Farms has not yet started export of the product for want of quantity, quality and consistency required to tap the overseas markets, Jaya Kumar said.
As per the arrangement with ICICI Lombard, Safed Musli growers under the fold of Nandan Agro will get an insurance coverage for planting material inputs worth Rs 2 lakh per acre on payment of a premium at the rate of 3 per cent of the total value of planting material. It works out to be Rs 6,000 per acre plus service tax of Rs 300.
The Safed Musli cultivation is expected to cost Rs 3 lakh per acre per annum, of which planting material cost accounts for Rs 2 lakh. The company claims there will be very good returns from the cultivation.
According to Kartik Jain, the head (marketing and retail) of ICICI Lombard, the insurance policy covers normal crop risks including uncontrollable pests and diseases leading to total/partial crop loss when it is grown under the consultancy services of Nandan Agro.
It does not cover any risk associated with the marketing of the product, Jain made it clear. ICICI Lombard proposes to provide insurance for about 200 acres of Safed Musli cultivation this year, he said.
