Fertilizer Industry’s Need to Work More Closely With Farmers: Sanjiv Kanwar, Yara Fertilisers

The last speaker for the FAI annual Seminar 2021 was Sanjiv Kanwar who is currently the Managing Director of Yara Fertilisers India Private Limited, Gurugram, Haryana.  

Kanwar who has an extensive experience of over 35 years in the field of fertiliser marketing spoke on the topic of Effective Marketing for Innovative Fertilizer Products. He stressed on how important it is for the Fertiliser industry to work closely with the Farmers and to provide customized solutions to them after thoroughly listening to their needs. 

He also said that it was imperative for the industry to understand and predict the needs of farmers to help farmers maximize their yields. While talking about megatrends that affect the Agriculture sector as a whole like GHG emissions, Climate change, water stress, Digitalization etc.

He also stressed that although 58 % of India’s population is working in the Farming sector, its contribution to India’s GDP is only 19% which shows that the farming industry is not making full use of its full potential. He further pointed out the yield gap between India and nations like the United States. He also suggested that India has to improve upon its fertiliser registration process to improve access to new technologies for people. According to a report published by the World Bank, India takes 804 days to register a new fertiliser product for introducing in farmers’ fields. 

The main topic of this half was “Strategies for fertiliser marketing”.  

Marketing experts from the Fertiliser Industry like V.S Sirohi, Deshpande and Sanjeev Kanwar came forward with extensively researched reports on this day to enlighten the attendees on this topic. The moderator of this session was  S. Narayanan who is currently the full; time Director of Marketing for Greenstar Fertilizers Limited, Chennai, Tamil Nadu.