Sustainable soy project announced for India

Ruchi Soya and its exclusive European marketing company RF Solutions have teamed up with ProTerra Foundation and Solidaridad for the initiative.

The programme’s starting point is the purchase of 12,000 RTRS credits followed in the near future through the purchase of 12,000 MT of certified beans. This will help over 10,000 certified farmers in the programme and additional 20,000 farmers who are improving their practices to become certified. The sale of certified non-GMO lecithin and soya meal shall gradually increase in the coming years under the programme. Meanwhile, Solidaridad plans to increase the farmer training programme to reach 70,000 farmers in the coming 2-3 years in India. The certification of groups of farmers and the verification work under the ProTerra Standard will be carried out by Cert ID, a company that has been in the Indian Non-GMO market for over 10 years.

The values estimated for buying the soya beans in India and for fostering the sustainability programme will be acquired and paid to the stakeholders in the programme through the sale of products under Chain of Custody Certificates in Europe. This will enable Ruchi Soya to buy the beans physically from the farmers who are participating in the programme.

With a proven track record on sustainability programmes in Brazil, Canada and France, The ProTerra Foundation is a valuable partner of the validation programme. Solidaridad has been working for many years in assisting farmers with sustainable practices and has been developing farmer programmes in India now for about 5 years.