Vol: 10 No: 3 October - December 2016 For private circulation and f ree distribution. From the MD's Desk Stepping into the 25th year is a landmark 0ur distinguished guests often join us in raising industry achievement for KF Bioplants! It gives us the standards, We wish to especially thank Hon'ble Mr. Sharad PawaI encouragement to scale new heights in the days former Minister of Agriculture, Govt. of lndia, for visiting Florist to come. As we enter our Silver Jubilee Year, we Holland. He has taken the time to understand our ideas and plans can't thank enough our trusting partners, our for the future, and we hope he continues to encourage us. enthusiastic distributors, our faithful employees As the festive season approaches, KF Bioplants wishes you all a and most of all our dear growers. They have fruitful and progressive year ahead. May health, wealth and contributed immensely to our progress by having faith in our happiness light up your livesl vision of making horticulture and floriculture, a professional and profitable venture for all. Manish Jain But as we celebrate, we also understand the responsibility that Managing Director, KF Bioplants Pvt. Ltd. this success brings with it. With each seminaI each field visit, and every interaction with our growers, we make a silent promise to ourselves: to spread the word of professional farming, to bring best technology and knowledge at the doorstep of the growe4 and to cherish their success! It is the success story of the grower that gives us encouragement. ln their willpoweri efforts and innovative ideas, we see the change that KF has envisioned. And to encourage these successes, we show our token of appreciation through awards and accolades. Whether it is the 'Best Growe/ or the 'Most Promising Growe/, we believe that these titles do more than celebrate achievements. We hope they help our growers to lead by example and bring about a transformation in the attitude towards the horticulture industry. Awards are not only for growers, but also for those who facilitate their success story. 0ur employees are our wealth and celebrating our progress cannot be done without acknowledging their efforts! With this aim, we congratulate those who have helped KF grow by leaps and bounds with the help of their hard wor( dedication and ideas. Big thanks to you all! In the journey of 24 years, we have welcomed numerous guests from various walk of life: from policy-makers to bankers, and from global experts to innovative farmers. The doors of KF are always open for those who wish to gain a better insight about the industry, and exchange ideas and knowledge to improve it. .t ? \z 3r lsporLrcur I Florist Holland impresses former Agri Minister Mr. Sharad Parvar ltwasaproudmomentforKFBioplantswhenformerMinisterof Agriculture, Govt. of lndia, Hon'ble Mr. Sharad Pawar along with Mrs. Pratibhatai Pawar and colleagues, visited Florist Holland-our Netherlands counterpart, in July this year. Mr. Melchior Moon (Managing Directoti Florist Holland B.V, Holland) and Mr. Marcel van Vemde (Executive Director, KF Bioplants) gave them an introduction of the company and its involvement with KF. They organised a visit to the greenhouses" of Florist Holland, inclusive of our R&D departments. ffi ln the discussion and brainstorming afterwards, Mr. Marcel had.,f,orgl'l,frii;ilaion witfr ,t tr*lt'", the various issues we face, such as import regulations, illegal propagation in the country, plant breeders' rights etc. Mr. Marcel also emphasised that together with KF Bioplants, they would like to play a significant role in lndia through the set up of a Centre of Excellence. Mr. Pawar was impressed by the global and professional plant biotech facility, He promised to get in touch with KF Bioplants on the various issues raised during the discussions. We thank Mr. Pawar and his colleagues for visiting Florist Holland. We also appreciate the efforts of Mr. Melchior, Mr. Marcel, and the team of Florist Holland for making this visit successful. Welcoming global expertise ln order to check our quality parameters of Rose Cultivation, KF organised the visit of Mr. Ziad Allan from Rosen Tantau, Germany to its first Rose project at Mehata Florex, Surat, Gujarat. Mr. Ziad commended the efforts of the grower and consistent support of Mr. Ankur Desai for converting such projects into success stories. KF Bioplants also appreciates the technical back-up given by our Sr. General Manager Mr. Hemant Phadatare, Asst. Technical Managers Mr. Sharad Pawar and Dr. Priya Chacko. KF Bioplants has always been the pioneer in introducing innovative flowering plant species. Calla Lily is one such product where KF has put enormous efforts to promote it as a cut-flower as well as a flowering pot plant. To boost this activity, we welcomed Mr. Lennaert Kapiteijn (lnternational Projects and Sales Manage; Kapiteyn B.V., Holland). Mr. Lennaert visited our growers in Pune and South lndia to understand the local market demands in order to plan the sales and distribution strategy, in cooperation with KF Bioplants in India. KF's General Manager (Marketing) Mr. Manish Chakurkar showed him around and gave clarity about KF's role in lndian floriculture activities. I KF Biopta nts marches Eowards iLs Sitver Jubitee Year It was an event of awards and appreciation, encouragement and merriment as KF Bioplants entered its 25th year on August 20, 2016. To begin the celebrations, a grand gala function was organised on August 29. The programme was inaugurated by our much loved and respected Managing Director Mr. Manish Jain along with Mrs. Mamta Jain in a traditional lamp lighting ceremony. ln keeping with our tradition of encouraging growers, KF Bioplants felicitated Mr. Arjun Mandhare with the 'Best Grower 2016' award for his achievement in floriculture. We also presented the 'Most Promising Grower'awardto Mrs. Swarn Kaur. Her dedicated efforts in growing excellent Gerbera in Punjab are a true example of 'women powe/, Our awards didn't end here. We value our employees as they are the key people who drive our growth. We felicitated Mr. Amit Shinde, our Lab Manager with the 'Excellence Award' for his consistent efforts Lr.t to produce quality plants and lead the lab to greater success! rIIr t(^. The much coveted 'Best Manager 2016' award was presented to Mr. Ajit Jadhav for his relentless efforts to develop the business in Western Maharashtra. This award speaks for his commitment, excellent communication and establishing customer relationship. 0ur strong pillars; our distributors, Mr. Ankur Desai, iti ti:. Mr. Prasannakumar, Mr. Utpal Bannerjee, Mr. Sanjeev Anerao, and Mr. Nitin Bhilare panicipated in our Foundation Day programme and encouraged us. Mr, Govind Hande, Technical Officer for Plant @4*+:= Quarantine Certification, also participated and guided us. We extend our deepest gratitude to them for their support and consistent value addition in KF's progress. ...@-;'..' e t Like every year, KF Bioplants organised various programmes like musical concert, blood donation drive, various sports activities, and prize distribution ceremony for the employees and their children who achieved success in 1Oth and 12th board exams, as wellas graduation and post-graduation courses The celebrations concluded with a strong emotion which echoed the feeling of family and togetherness! :IHa ;?#' & PW.LTD. : " ,-*a#:' rug%,e.aa@ t * .g;4.r:...1t. w- r *, ' '::: I e% rm, dt q ?r€arqIdln Trflra. 'ai:n, Ceqr qrffi*tqr Bffit .il" ,:w, *Y {, *;" '.: b uln *, q, 20'6 Success stories: Growers' dedication, Nation's pride! A grower's success story shows us that we are heading in th6 We congratulate Mr. Anant Chodankar (Valpoi, Goa) and Mr. Pradeep right direction! Through their achievements, growers endorse Bagi (Belagavi, Karnataka)for Dendrobium, Mr. Srikanth (Bengaluru, our plant quality, professional communication, scientific Karnataka) and Mr. Prakash Nagare (Kannad, Aurangabad, technical support and commitment to horticultural development Maharashtra) for Gerbera and Mr. Bhimsen Salve (Junnar; Pune, of the country. Maharashtra) for Colour Capsicum. We wish them success in their future endeavours! KF Bioplants applauds the dedicated efforts, high-tech approach and strong will of many growers who have achieved fantastic results. ffi !ffi ')i4,ru7 KF Bioplants rouses bankers' curiosiq/! KF Bioplants always supports the policy and strategy- makers of lndia by providing product and technical knowledge, and by giving an insight into the horliculture industry. A group of 50 bankers from various Public and Private sector banks from various parts of the country visited KF Bioplants. This visit was organised by the National lnstitute of Banking and Management (NIBM), Pune. Mr. Manish Chakurkat our General Manager (Marketing), was enthusiastic to show them around and explain the sustainability of various projects. We hope this will help the bankers to have positive approach towards financing horticulture sector activities and thus, help our growers. L t6 Growers flock to seminars country-wide At KF Bioplants, we realise the importance of creating awareness The Sweet Pepper greenhouse was inaugurated by Mr. Gulabrao Patil about technological advances in global horticulture sector (Minister-Cooperation and MLA, Jalgaon), Dr. Kailas Mote (Divisional amongst lndian growers. And, to take this from lab to land, Dy. Director; Agriculture), Mr. K. D. Mahajan (Dy. Director, AATMA), KF organises various country-wide seminars and field visits Mr. Vijay Bharambe (Officer, Taluka Agrrculture) and Mr. R. D. Patil where our growers get first-hand know-how about new (lnspector, Quality Control ). practices. Similar successful seminars were held in Baramati (KVK), Kolhapur Recently, KF organised a seminar in Jalgaon, Maharashtra with (SILC) and in Meghalaya with Mr. Utpal Bannerjee, our distributor Mr. Shailendra Chavan (Editor, Agroworld). Traditionally Jalgaon is a for Norlh-Eastern states of lndia. Banana and Cotton growing area. Despite the initial hesitation to A field visit was taken up at Gulbarga in Karnataka for Dendrobium adopt new practices, farmers here are now warming up to KF's active promotion.