Indian farmers thrive with new sweet pepper varieties
“The demand for high quality sweet peppers continues to rise, especially for the green ones”, Product Development Manager Ravindra Savant of Rijk Zwaan India explains. “The consumers are appreciating the better taste of our varieties and growers value the quality and high yield.” Over the past few years, Savant has been guiding protected cultivation net house and poly house growers in the Central West Region of India in order to improve their yield. One of these growers is Vishnu Save, one of the country’s biggest pepper growers.
Vishnu Save produces for Indian markets such as Mumbai, Delhi and Bangalore. The lacking infrastructure and logistic chain is a great challenge in this. "It takes 36 hours for our sweet peppers to arrive in Delhi and Bangalore”, Vishnu Save explains. “It's therefore very important that we harvest high quality crops. We're growing Massilia RZ from Rijk Zwaan for several years now. This variety grows uniform crops and provides better quality and a high yield for longer duration. Furthermore, Massilia RZ has a very good shelf life, which is a crucial requirement for us.”
Personal after sales service
In order to help Vishnu Save improve the cultivation, Savant visits the farm regularly. "I come here every three weeks or so”, Savant tells. "We walk through the net houses together and discuss the situation and what needs to be done. By sharing best practices with the grower and his workers I try to educate them." To Vishnu Save these visits are very valuable: "This after sales service helps us improve our results. Partly thanks to this, we are able to expand our business."
For more information:
Rijk Zwaan
info@rijkzwaan.com
www.rijkzwaan.com