India, with 2.4% of the world's geographical area, sustains about 16% of the global population. Feeding this ever increasing population will be a challenging task in the future, as the country's arable land resources are finite, with limited scope for expanding the area of land under cultivation. Therefore, most of the increase in agricultural production will be obtained through increased productivity from the existing agricultural land. This can be achieved by suitable agricultural practices including timely application of fertilisers and pesticides. Pest and weed management will play a key role in achieving and sustaining self-sufficiency in agricultural production in the future.

Over the past few years, the Indian herbicide market has become more generic. With just three brands in 1998, this market now has over 100 brands and the players in this field would continue to increase each year. We have maintained our position as market leaders in our three categories of operation and have financially performed well, despite the fall in prices and the increase in competition.

"Our focus remains on building relationships with farmers and trade partners."

NON SELECTIVE HERBICIDE
The Non selective herbicide segment category constitutes 11% of the Indian herbicide market. Our brand Roundup is very critical for our current and future business. This segment has grown over the past five years. We have been able to achieve a 20% volume increase in brand growth annually by leveraging our partnership with farmers.

We have retained our market share in the plantations segment and are steadily growing in the pre-plant segment. The pre-plant segment is growing all across the country. Bunds and orchards are growing in West and North India while plantations are being fostered in the East.

This success is attributed to our carefully nurtured strategy. We emphasised on farmer education showing them the benefits of using Roundup in the pre-plant segment. This education program was a great success as farmers who used it recommended it to their co-farmers.

RICE HERBICIDE
In the Rice herbicide segment, our molecule, Butachlor constitutes 11% of the Indian herbicide market, our two brands being: Machete and Fastmix. In India, of the 108 million acres under rice cultivation, only 9.4 million acres (13%) has been penetrated by herbicides. With satisfactory results from current molecules and the low returns generated, this category has not had a new chemistry introduction in the last several years. In the Butachlor market, we are consistently growing in volume and market share in spite of increase in competition. This growth has been due to our quality product.

Machete, a very well recognised brand, is our time tested and environmentally friendly product, providing a weed control tool to the farmers. Fastmix, our second brand is also doing very well, growing by almost 50% annually.

The rice herbicide is now a matured market, having limited growth in the near future.

Our focus remains on building relat ionships wi th our end customers i.e., farmers and our trade partners. The role of farmers and trade partners will get more critical once the market becomes mature for our Chemistry business.

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