Seeds of hope for India's green revolution: (Deepak Mullick helping to do this).

One of the biggest challenges facing India is how to feed and clothe its vast population, which officially reached one billion in May. Deepak Mullick, Managing Director of Advanta India in Bangalore, is a man who is helping to do this. He is described by the UK charity Worldaware as `one of India's foremost professionals in agribusiness'.

Last year, Advanta, then known as ITC Zeneka, won a Worldaware award for its contribution to India's green revolution. The trophy was presented to Mullick by Britain's Minister for Trade and Industry, Richard Caborn, at a ceremony in London. Worldaware aims to provide `those who influence society's choices' with the resources they need `to incorporate development issues and the eradication of poverty into their decision-making'.

Advanta is extending the green revolution to hundreds of thousands of farmers beyond the wheat and rice growing plains of northern India. In south India the company supplies maize, sorghum, and hybrid cotton and rice seeds mostly to small farmers with holdings of less than five acres. The hybrid seeds, which combine different parental lines, give increases in yield, better quality and greater stress resistance. For every rupee spent on the new seeds farmers can reap up to five rupees of crop. Advanta also supplies sorghum and pearl millet to the more arid areas of north-west India.

But its biggest success has been with sunflower seeds. Trials carried out by the Indian Council for Agricultural Research showed that Advanta's seeds produce 1,200kg per hectare, compared with the national average of 450kg. The hybrid seeds are particularly tolerant to moisture stress and up to 80 per cent of the sunflower seeds bought by farmers in drought-prone areas of central south India are supplied by Advanta.

The company has seven research stations and employs 500 people, including a network of agricultural graduates and field assistants to help farmers to grow better crops.

To produce an abundant supply of the hybrid seed, the company has adopted `seed villages', in which it contracts farmers to grow the seeds from the parental-line stock it supplies. Over 5,000 farming families take part in this.

Mullick explains that it all begins with a meeting with village elders and leaders. The company agrees to buy the whole crop at a pre-determined price, much higher than that for a commercial crop. `The seed village concept is a win-win model,' Mullick says.

Worldaware's judges praised Advanta as `a very good example of a major company, which looks beyond its commercial goals and is committed to the development of the communities within which it works. It sees itself as inter-dependent with local farmers and works alongside them to produce the best and most sustainable crops possible.'