Coca-Cola India and Jain Irrigation Tie-up to adopt UHDP Practice for Mango Cultivation

Coca-Cola India and Jain Irrigation on 14 September 2011 announced the launch of Project Unnati. Unnati will mark a unique partnership with farmers to demonstrate and enable adoption of ultra-high density plantation (UHDP) practice for mango cultivation. The project is to encourage sustainable, modern agricultural practices and help double mango yields.

UHDP is a farming practice that leads to mango orchards attaining their full potential in 3-4 years and allows nearly 600 trees to be planted per acre instead of the conventional 40 trees.

In the first phase of the project, 200 demo farms of size between one and three acres will use the UHDP technique for mango cultivation while also utilising the benefits of drip irrigation. The process is expected to improve farmer's income by increasing  yield/acre and also decrease the water used. The first phase has an investment outlay of more than $2 million and will be shared equally between the two companies. The process will be implemeted first with UHDP farming in some farms in Chittoor and Cudappa districts of Andhra Pradesh, an area renowned for the Totapuri Mango.

The demo farms will be used to showcase and train farmers on the technique and adoption of UHDP practice under a joint capability building programme under the aegis of Jain irrigation and Coca-Cola University.
The area under mango cultivation is not growing at required pace. UHDP mango plantation is a viable solution to tackle this problem and can be undertaken in all tradition mango growing regions.

UHDP process

UHDP process requires mango grafts of commercial varieties planted close to each other. Special techniques lead to the well-rounded growth of mango orchards. This technique has been standardized and commercialized by Jain Irrigation at its R & D farm at Udmalpet, Tamil Nadu where currently 100 acres is under UHDP.