Hyderabad, India
November 29, 2009

Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh Dr K Rosaiah, formally inaugurated the state-of-the-art multi-crop seed processing facility of Vibha Seeds located in Janampet in Mahabubnagar district of Andhra Pradesh, on Saturday. Jairam Ramesh, Union Minister of State for Environment and Forests, N Raghuveera Reddy, Minister for Agriculture and Horticulture, Government of Andhra Pradesh were the distinguished guests on the occasion. The new facility is a leap forward for Vibha Seeds, a research and technology-driven trailblazer in the Indian seed industry.

Said Vidyasagar Parchuri, Chairman & Managing Director of Vibha Seeds, "Our constant endeavour has been to be innovative and to pioneer cost-effective technologies that can meet the requirements of farmers, markets and agro-industries. This new facility with a processing capacity of 1200 tonnes per day of field and vegetable crops is one of the world's largest plants - that includes an industrial scale biotech lab, a corn-cob drying facility, a cotton processing plant, a warehousing-packaging facility, cold storage facilities. The facility can roll out 100 trucks of processed seeds per day – of over 190 products in 12 field crops and 18 vegetable crops. To further ensure stringent adherence to quality, a seed quality assurance system is also in place with highly modern facilities," at the inauguration ceremony.

"For us, 'seed, soil and sustainability' in agriculture is the ultimate goal. We are committed to serve farmers by helping to improve their soil and crop yields sustainably through our supply chain," added Parchuri.

The company has set for itself a mission to increase productivity by integrating new technological developments like biotechnology and genetic engineering with conventional breeding methods. It has sound research collaborations with several national and international institutes such as International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT), Asian Vegetable Research and Development Center (AVRDC), Centro Internacional de Mejoramiento de Maíz y Trigo (CYMMIT), International Rice Research Institute (IRRI), Kasetsart University (Thailand), North Carolina State University, Australian Centre for Plant Functional Genomics (ACPFG) and others.

Vibha has on board professional and dedicated scientists, breeders, seed producers, agronomists, biotechnologists with national and international professional experience.

Vibha Seeds, founded in 1995, by Mr. Vidyasagar Parchuri, is a trendsetter in the Indian agriculture industry, reaching over 20 million farmers across 19 states with a network of 4,900 distributors. For further strengthening its R&D efforts, the company has set up high-tech labs with modern facilities, a gene bank with more than 60,000 germplasm of all its seed crops, 800 acres of research farms around Hyderabad, 15 R&D centers and 34 multi-location testing centers across India. Headquartered in Hyderabad, India, Vibha Agrotech has a workforce of 1,900 employees and is represented with regional and area offices all over India. Vibha has three sister concerns - Nusun Genetic Research Limited (NUSUN),
Seed Innovations Private Limited (SINNOVA), Centromere Bio-solutions Private Limited (CENBIOS). Vibha is poised to expand its commercial operations to China, Australia, Thailand, Bangladesh, Myanmar, Philippines, Ethiopia, Egypt and Middle-east countries.

Website: http://www.vibhaseeds.com

Published: December 3, 2009