Crystal aims at pesticide market share of 11 % in Punjab

Ludhiana, July 19, 2014: Crystal Crop Protection, country’s leading agro-chemical companies, has announced that it aims to increase its total market share in Punjab to 11% this year. Currently, it holds about 7% of the Rs 1250 crore pesticide market in the state. Markets including Ludhiana will be vital to its growth, Crystal Group Chairman NK Aggarwal announced Friday, while celebrating one year of company’s flagship Billo a pesticide which has been extensively used by farmers in the state over the years.
“We are happy to contribute in the success story of Punjab farmers. To ensure farmers get timely and reliable products, we have expanded our distribution and many of our products including Missile, Topper, Sure, Billo and Nidan are well accepted by farmers here,” Aggarwal added.
“We have strong on-ground team to address the needs of farmers, aiming to reach more number of farmers this year; we are further strengthening our infrastructure. They would be present across the state to train farmers on judicious use of pesticides and address all concerns related to farming,” added Aggarwal.
Farmers in Ludhiana and nearby areas have been benefited by timely and right use of Billo. Anil Nirwal, Director Marketing, Crystal Crop Protection, said, “Billo has helped farmers gain full control over pest management and prevent crop loss. We have been holding regular training sessions in various parts of the county to train farmers about proper usage technique of Billo, so that its benefit could be utilized to achieve optimum plant growth by proper pest control management. We will continue to train farmers for pest management and to improve the quality of their produce.”
Billo, is a naturally derived pesticide, which is highly effective against all kinds of Caterpillar pests, killing the pest through contact and ingestion. It has been very useful in controlling Lepidopteron pests (moths), which are common to almost all type of cultivated plant. It has the least technical dose which is 2.85 gm per acre. This is highly effective at low dosage, making it value for money for the farmers. This makes it one of the safest products for environment, human, pets, birds, as well as fish.
Billo is sprayed at the initial stage of infestation preferably during first developmental stage of caterpillars. “The chemical which enters the leaf, reaches its lower surface where eggs are generally laid. It then enters the outer covering of the eggs, making the covering toxic. At the time of hatching, larva comes out by breaking the outer covering of the egg and gets killed immediately due to ingestion of the toxin. Hence the larva is killed at the time of hatching, controlling the crop loss.
Farmer’s growing demand for Crystal products has motivated us to strengthen our reach in different parts of Punjab. Crystal will be focussing on product development this year for the state. We will soon introduce weedicides for wheat which will be of great help for farmers in the coming year. Since Punjab is majorly a cotton and paddy growing region, our team will further strengthen our ongoing awareness campaign like Surya Project, an initiative to educate farmers to control bakanae disease and Dhan ka Rakhwala Nidan, an initiative to control leaf folder pest, added Nirwal.
Dr RH Bisht, Director Sales, Crystal Group, said, “We are concentrating on the channel development, development of resources to increase our sale in the state this year. We appreciative the dedication of our sales team who are working day and night to increase the performance of the company in the state and make our products available to large part of the market”.
Brand Ambassador of Billo, Shweta Tiwari was present to give awards to the hard working distributors and dealers of crystal. Announcing the lucky draw, she said “I am extremely happy to be associated with Crystal and Billo, which is a unique product of pest control and management. This association has helped me understand farmer’s struggle for pest control. Crystal is helping farming community with its products and personalised outreach to deal with their problems of enhancing productivity”.