Pepsico, the manufacturer of Pepsi and several other beverage and snack products has been working on the area of "Direct Seeding of Rice" for 5 years now. This is part of the CSR initiatives of Pepsico where they have been working for the past 20 years on new agri initiatives to bring in new technologies to farmers to increase their income. Direct seeding is to improve sustainability in agriculture.
Traditionally, India paddy is cultivated by sowing seeds in a small nursery, where the seeds germinate into saplings. The saplings are then transferred manually into the main field and then grown with 4 - 5 inches of water at the base of the crop for the first 6 - 8 weeks, mainly to prevent weed growth. Direct seeding avoids three basic operations, namely, puddling ( a process where soil is compacted to reduce water seepage), transplanting and standing water, thereby saving about 30% water (0.9 million liters of water / acre). Even if 25% of the Indian paddy cultivation can be shifted to direct seeding, water saving will be equal to the total water consumed by the Indian Industry. PepsiCo is working with International Rice Research Institute to carry out water measurements in direct seeded and traditionally irrigated farmer fields to validate the reduction in water consumption achieved through direct seeding.
According to Pepsico, their work with farmers on direct rice seeding has resulted in a saving of over 5000 million liters of water in 2009 alone.
For the full details of the work, please see this attached document: direct-seeding-note-on-website For more information contact: corporate.communications@intl.pepsico.com
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