AVT Natural Products Ltd has become the first Indian company to successfully tap China's huge agriculture sector and set up a marigold plantation and processing unit for export.
"We are planning to invest in setting up a de-hydration plant, which is a part of the processing. In the next three to five years, we are planning an investment of USD two to three million in China to set up a wholly owned foreign enterprise," Managing Director of AVT NPL, M S A Kumar said.
Though AVT NPL had started sourcing from China from 2000-2001, the company opened a Representative Office in Beijing in 2005 to coordinate and move forward in the Chinese market.
"We got the business license to operate in Heilongjiang Province in June 2006 to undertake the cultivation and post-harvest processing of marigold," Kumar said.
The company has established a fully-owned subsidiary, Tonghe AVT Natural Ltd in Tonghe County in northeast China's Heilongjiang Province. "This year, we are cultivating about 1,000 acres of marigold and next year we may plant some 3,500 to 4,000 acres," he said.
AVT NPL has emerged as a global leader in harvesting, processing and extraction of oleoresin from marigold. Under the strategic alliance, Kemin would buy the entire product from the AVT NPL unit in China.
"We came to China basically for two reasons, marigold being an agricultural produce, we wanted to de-risk the vagaries of nature and to offer a two country option with different climatic conditions," Kumar said. China's cost competitiveness and local government support were also major factors in venturing into the country, he said.
The company conducted marigold cultivation trials in 2005 in Xinjiang in northwest China, Yunnan in southwest, Shandong in east, Inner Mongolia in north and Henan in central China, Chief Executive Officer, China operations, Suresh Menon said. "After these trials, we found that Heilongjiang is the right place to do the cultivation due to the ideal climate for the crop," he said.
Farmers in Heilongjiang also get a very good yield. In many areas, Chinese marigold farmers get 40 to 50 per cent more yield than in India where it is cultivated in Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu, Kumar said.
Source:佚名