Agriculture

Neo Foods does contract farming of vegetables spread over South India in the 4 states of Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh and Telangana. With the factory located within a 20-300 km radius of the farming area, our produce undergoes a short and efficient lead time between harvest to processing. The produce is cultivated under cluster sowing method and package of practice for usage of pesticides and fertilizers meets USFDA and European Union ( EU) regulations/norms. Annually 6000-7000 acres of crop is cultivated under contract farming in these 3 states.

As a natural extension of our ethical practice, we are gradually adapting drip irrigation systems which we provide to our 12000-15000 farmers annually who we work with. Multi crop growing approach ensures our farmers are engaged and dedicated to Neo and earn throughout the year.

Our farmer training and interaction programmes are held every quarter enabling farmers to share their experiences and grievances and learn the new practices to be followed. We continuously educate our farmers on new technologies, fertilizers applications and growing methods with the help of experts from various institutions and agriculture universities. The Package of practice is being followed by us as per USFDA/EU regulations. Traceability system is in place from each farm to each jar produced.

Below is the method followed to control the pest activity.
Fruit Fly Management: We follow fruit fly management at the farm level for every crop grown and in order to ensure farmer benefit, we subsidize imported protein bait.
Border crop: Sow thickly four rows of maize (Preferable African tall) around the gherkin plot, one week prior to the gherkin sowing.
Pheromone traps: Install 8 cue lure blocks per acre to attract the male fruit flies. It is for monitoring purpose and in high number gives management by mating disruption
Protein bait: Weekly spray of protein bait – Prima Protein bait @ 400 ml in 3.6 litrs of water and Malathion 12 ml per 3.6 litrs of water.
Cover sprays: Spray Malathion @ 3 ml/l + Jaggery 10% weekly on gherkin crop (Malathion: EU MRL 0.2 mg/kg & US MRL 8 ppm)