Sustainable Guar Initiative

TechnoServe is demonstrating and refining scalable actions for inclusive, sustainable growth and competitiveness of the Guar market system in India.

TechnoServe is implementing Sustainable Guar Initiative (SGI) in Bikaner, Rajasthan, to conceive, demonstrate, and refine scalable actions for an inclusive, sustainable growth of the Guar production system in India. Launched in partnership with Solvay, L’Oreal and Henkel and HiChem, SGI aims to enhance livelihood opportunities for smallholder guar farmers and lead to their economic development. SGI aims to achieve this through the promotion of agronomic and groundwater-neutral best practices in guar cultivation in order to build climate resilience, thus enhancing productivity.

SGI has also been working to create a market system that maximizes flexibility, resilience, and responsiveness. To this end, we have undertaken several traceability initiatives to integrate farmers directly into the supply chains of institutional buyers. Additionally, we have also facilitated the set-up of a Farmer Producer Company, which will help institutional buyers significantly scale up their procurement of sustainable guar from our program farmers in the long run. Over the last 3 years, the program has registered 7,340 farmers and has led to the procurement of 800MT of traceable guar by HiChem to date. The program in its current phase aims to achieve a 25 percent increase in revenue for 75 percent of the engaged farmers by 2020.