NSL sees its revenues tripling in four years

Hyderabad: The Nuziveedu Seeds Limited (NSL), a pioneer company in marketing of hybrid cotton seeds, said it expects to grow twice the market growth to triple its revenues from the current Rs 1,000 crore over the next four to five years. It is projecting the growth based on the investments made in various research programmes over the last 18 months or so, said M Prabhakar Rao, NSL Group chairman.

The company has completed 50 years of operations. It was set up by agricultural technologist M Venkata Ramaiah in 1973.

Addressing the media here on Tuesday, NSL chairman Prabhakar Rao said cotton hybrids ‘Bunny’ and ‘Mallika’, developed by the company, became popular hybrids in the market. At one point, the company sold more than one crore packets capturing almost one-third of the cotton seed market in India, he said.

The company had earlier acquired partner companies namely Prabhat Agri Biotech, Parvardhan Seeds and Yaganti Seeds (now named Asha Agrisciences) to expand paddy, mustard, maize, bajra and others. “Today, our annual turnover is an equal mix of both cotton and field crops business,” he said.

The company earmarked about five per cent of its revenues for research and development activities. It has more than 150 scientists. Over the years, NSL has developed a supply and warehousing capability. It has 13 processing facilities and 29 cold storages and warehouses across ten states. A team of 500 employees works with about one lakh seed producing farmers in India. NSL has about 2,000 employees. It caters to more than 50 lakh million farmers, has 7,500 distributors and 20,000 retailers.

The organised seed industry in the country is pegged at Rs 20,000 crore and is growing around 10 per cent. The company is hopeful of growing at 19-20 per cent, he said.

Agriculture is dependent on monsoon and vagaries of weather. The cotton seed production was affected this year due to the erratic monsoons. NSL is preparing itself with climate resilient products and is investing to develop products adaptable to changed agronomic practices. High density planting system (HDPS) initiative in cotton is one such example. Developing a new variety of seed takes about ten years.

NSL is also working towards expanding seed business in other South Asian and African countries and developing alternate models of sales and B2B collaborations to maximize our footprint and market shares. At the group level, which includes real estate and others, the revenues are about Rs 6,000 crore.