IFFCO Boosts IT Performance and Innovates Agriculture with Oracle Cloud

Indian Farmers Fertiliser Cooperative Ltd. (IFFCO), the world’s largest manufacturer and marketer of fertilizers in the cooperative sector, was facing several challenges in its quest to innovate and improve the livelihood of farmers in India. The organization had recently launched a new product, nano urea, which brought new demands to IFFCO’s cloud computing needs. The organization needed a reliable cloud vendor to support the processes of 6–7 new manufacturing plants during the upcoming year, enhancing its production capability 300–350 million bottles of nano urea to meet increasing demand. IFFCO’s cloud adoption was driven by a need to innovate. The organization wanted capabilities for a dynamic business that can adapt to the changing needs of the market while growing fast. However, it was inhibited by rigid on-premises data center deployments and the overhead of maintaining legacy systems. IFFCO wanted to apply the elasticity and availability of cloud for improving overall performance of applications at lowest possible operational overhead. Lastly, IFFCO needed to provide the benefits of its technology to all its stakeholders, including employees, members, transporters, and farmers, some of whom have limited literacy. To accommodate all stakeholders, IFFCO wanted to add a voice interface to its applications.

Indian Farmers Fertiliser Cooperative Ltd. (IFFCO) is the world’s largest manufacturer and marketer of fertilizers in the cooperative sector. It serves over 35,000 cooperatives and 55 million farmers across India. IFFCO has five manufacturing plants in India and 19 joints ventures within India and overseas. It has been using Oracle products for decades and using Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) more recently to modernize its IT estate. IFFCO is committed to bringing innovative ideas to market to improve the livelihood of farmers in India. It recently launched a first of its kind nano urea, a portable 500 ml bottled product that replaces 45 kg urea bags, improving crop yields by 8–10%, reducing pesticide and chemical fertilizer use, and mitigating soil erosion.