Bengaluru, February 6
After a muted performance in kharif, agrochemical major UPL is eyeing a growth in the on-going rabi season. The company is launching new technologies for rice and sugarcane, which it believes will help drive growth.
“Rabi should be good in India. Globally, it is our biggest quarter. We should be able to continue our growth,” said Jai Shroff, Global CEO, UPL.
Unfavourable weather during kharif season impacted the demand in key target crops resulting in a flattish revenue growth in Indian market. UPL clocked revenues of ₹907 crore in December quarter from its Indian operations as compared to same period last year’s ₹906 crore.
“The Indian market was impacted by drought in Madhya Pradesh and cyclonic weather in Andhra. We are quite confident that the Indian market will continue to grow this year,” Shroff said.
Recently, UPL has received approval to launch Flupyrimin, a rice insecticide in India. UPL has licensed Flupyrimin from Meiji in Japan. “We are launching that technology this quarter. We expect that to lead to some strong growth, ” Shroff said.
Further, Shroff said that company’s herbicide portfolio of products are in strong demand from farmers after the prices of gyphosate, a widely used herbicide, have been on an uptrend in recent quarters.
“A lot of supply disruption from China has led to glyphosate prices being very high. With that, demand for all herbicides has been increasing. Our portfolio of herbicides, including Metribuzin, S-metolachlor and Glufosinate, have benefited from the high prices because farmers who are not able to get glyphosate are obviously switching to these technologies,” Shroff added.
UPL has emerged as a strong herbicide company in recent years. “Ten year ago UPL was only an insecticide company. We have built a good portfolio of herbicides in the last 10 years and it has become very important segment for UPL,” Shroff added.
Anand Vora, Chief Financial Officer, said herbicides accounted for over 30 per cent of the company’s revenues. Herbicides and has been the fastest growing segment this year, Vora said.
Commenting on the impact of the uptrend in commodity prices on the sector, Shroff said “Corn, wheat and soyabean prices are high which is leading to farmers focusing on maximising yields using as much technology as possible to increase yields. That is benefitting the agriculture sector. I think its going to stay for some time”.