IFFCO MD Dr U S Awasthi was conferred with “Lifetime Achievement Award ABSA-2020” in the field of Agriculture, Cooperatives & Service to farmers, at a glittering function in Hyderabad on Thursday.
Soon after the award ceremony, which was attended by senior state govt officials, state ministers and representatives of the agri sector, Awasthi tweeted “I dedicate this award to the farmers and co-operators of the country. Congratulations to everyone.”
Started by Rajendra Kumar Agrawal in the year 2019, Ray Consulting claims to be the first entity in India, which recognises the efforts of the agri sector in providing quality products and contributing to the national income.
Talking to Indian Cooperative, Agrawal who has put in 35 years in the chemical fertilizer industry, claimed that close to 275 representatives from about 125 companies dealing with agriculture and food processing sectors, participated in the event.
Speaking on the subject “How co-operatives can build strong and sustainable agri business models”, the IFFCO MD said “This award honors not only 36,000-member cooperatives and 5000 employees of IFFCO but extends to millions of farmers across the country.”
In his speech the MD said how due to globalization and co-operatives’ competence and ability the world has to transform as per changing global scenario and define their growth story and standing globally. We at the IFFCO totally believe in this and have set our benchmarks accordingly. We believe in thinking locally but acting globally.
Lauding the co-op model Awasthi said Cooperatives are the real models of growth of any nation. They are present at the grass-roots level of India i.e. in its villages. Their growth has the domino-multiplier effect on the nation’s economy, he stressed.
The IFFCO MD also laid down core values needed for a successful co-op model and said “currency of cooperatives is their principles and values.” Second thing he talked about was innovation to achieve both UN sustainable development goals (SDGs) and remain competitive.
The IFFCO has firm belief in the cooperative spirit and at the same time it has not compromised on professionalism. We have promoted a proactive ecosystem within the whole organization. This has resulted in positive outcomes and cross domain expansion of IFFCO.
Today the IFFCO accounts for about 1/4th of the fertilizer market of India; 35,282 cooperatives are its members and have a farmer base of 5.5 million and pan India presence.
Strategic ventures were made to assure quality products; maintain standard production competency as well as community service through our more than 19 subsidiaries/ JV’s and Associates in various fields”, underlined the MD.
Awasthi also chose the occasion to list the achievements of IFFCO informing the audience that IFFCO is number one cooperative of the world as per ICA, it is the only cooperative to be ranked in the top 100 of the Fortune India 500 companies.
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