On completion of 50 years of service to the farming community, NSL management takes this opportunity to extend our heartfelt gratitude to all the farmers, our seed producers, channel partners, scientists, government officials, industry peers & NSL employees who have worked with us at any point of time for making us stand in the shape we are in today.

Nuziveedu Seeds Limited (NSL) was founded in 1973 by Shri. Mandava Venkata Ramaiah, an agricultural technologist near Nuziveedu town of Krishna District, Andhra Pradesh. NSL is among the few companies that started around the same time as the inception of private seed sector in India and initially working towards taking the public bred varieties to the farmers and eventually developing its own research program to offer value added improved varieties and hybrid seeds to the farming community. Only a handful of the companies have survived over the years, NSL being among very few to have crossed Rs1000 Crores revenue over the years.

Dr. M. Prabhakar Rao, the chairman of the NSL group and the Managing director of NSL seeds (Nuziveedu Seeds Limited) a graduate and post graduate from BHU and is a recipient of the Gold Medal and Merit Scholarship during post-graduation following in his father’s footsteps, took up the family managed seed company- Nuziveedu Seeds in 1982 and went on to nurture the company into a market leader in the Indian seed industry.

Nuziveedu Seeds is a pioneer company in the marketing of hybrid cotton seeds in the country. The cotton hybrids ‘Bunny’ and ‘Mallika’, developed under Mr. M. P. Rao’s guidance became the most popular hybrids in the market. The high yield, pest and disease tolerance, and quality fibre of these seeds has resulted in their rapid and widespread adoption by the farmers making NSL the leader in Cotton Seed business and sold > 1 crore packets capturing almost 1/3^rd of the cotton seed market at one point.

NSL’s growth momentum has been fueled by superior genetics in cotton and improved paddy varieties growing the business organically at rapid pace. The company made acquisition of partner companies namely Prabhat Agri Biotech Limited, Parvardhan Seeds Private Limited & Yaganti Seeds Private Limited(now named Asha Agrisciences) to expand its horizons beyond cotton and improved paddy to inorganically grow & strengthen market presence in maize, hybrid paddy, mustard & bajra seed business. Today our annual turnover is a equal mix of both cotton and field crops business expanding our footprint to the length and breadth of our country and beyond.

What differentiates Nuziveedu Seeds from rest of the companies is a wider portfolio of crops catering to food, fiber, oilseeds and vegetable requirement of the nation. Nuziveedu seeds over the years have invested aggressively in cutting edge research and development through conventional breeding as well as utilization of modern technology to deliver industry leading seed varieties and hybrids. Many of the NSL products are used as national checks in All India Coordinated Research Projects, talks about our product development capabilities. A 150 plus strong and qualified team of scientists works day and night to develop and test pipeline products across major crops that cater to almost 85% of the cropped area in the country.  

Over the last 20 years, NSL has developed an industry leading supply and warehousing capability to cater to growing market needs. NSL is the only private sector company with 13 processing facilities and 29 cold storages & warehouses spread across 10 states of the country. A team of almost 500 employees work with almost 1,00,000 plus seed producing farmers to produce and deliver high quality seeds to the farmers in India.

NSL today employs more than 2000 customer facing full time employees and sales promoters to serve a customer base of almost 5 million farmers through a robust network of >7500 distributors and >20,000 retailers.   

The Indian seed industry is expanding rapidly at a healthy 10% plus Year on Year due to increasing seed replacement ratios and increasing awareness amongst farmers about role of high-quality seed in improving farm productivity. Recent launches of new cotton hybrids like Asha, Aadhya, Navneeth, Siri, Revanth & Ray have positioned NSL for much faster growth with its cotton business. With increased focus on product and market development for field crops, NSL has launched several pathbreaking hybrid products like BX-44, X4 & RX100 in hybrid rice, Winner, Capsule, Kranthi & Danvir in hybrid corn, Raja Jute and Sandhya, Sri Annapurna, NP9624, Dhanwan & Balwan in improved varietal rice segments. NSL has also entered newer crops like hybrid millets (SunMax) and hybrid mustard (Zordar, Champion & Basanti) helping farmers in Western India to evolve from subsistence farming to surplus.

The significant contributions made by NSL to the agriculture of India

• Development of hybrids Bunny and Mallika followed by many others which are popular now to enhance yield as well as fibre quality to above 30 mm which has contributed substantially to the growth of the Textile Industry.
• Contribution to Rice variety development by private sector leading to many other companies following suit thereby enhancing the varietal availability to the farmers.
• Spread of Bt cotton seeds to the farmers at more affordable prices.
• Development of machinery for cotton seed processing and treatment to deliver better value to the farmers.
• Extensive R&D for development and testing of new varieties/hybrids across the country which delivered superior products for increased incomes of the farmers.
• Training of substantial number of professionals who went on to serve the industry across the country and contributed to seed industry and agriculture

In addition to our own proprietary research, we continue to collaborate with ICAR and government institutes to commercialize newer products and technologies coming out of the public research system. Soon to be commercialized HT Rice technology is one example.

As a result of all above, NSL is expected to grow at 2X of market growth to triple its revenue over next 4-5 years and gain market shares across all the major crops.  

Agriculture as such is dependent on monsoon and vagaries of weather, which offers a lot of challenges and might lead to crop shifts or changes in farmer buying behavior. NSL has identified this as an opportunity and is preparing itself dynamically by deploying modern techniques for developing climate resilient products. Policy enablement for utilization and deployment of newer technologies for such product development could help fast track these initiatives.

NSL is investing substantially to develop products adaptable to changed agronomic practices that enhance productivity and mechanization. The High Density Planting System (HDPS) initiative in cotton is just one example.

NSL is also working towards expanding our seed business in other South Asian and African countries and developing alternate models of sales and B2B collaborations within and outside the country to maximize our genetic footprint and market shares. Significant investments have been made to upgrade ERP & digital capabilities of the company to keep pace with the changing market needs and growth aspirations.

NSL also understands its corporate social responsibility and has been making significant investments to deliver to our commitments to society. NSL is working diligently to develop & roll out an ESG framework and looking to nurturing partnerships that fulfill its commitment for a safer and greener environment.