Work experience spanning over three generations is, in today's world, a very rare phenomenon. Yet, a casual talk with a farmer at Nellikuppam reveals that the majority of the workers and farmers in the EID Parry factory are working in the factory that their grandfather and father worked in. 

Over the years, Parrys has developed about 90,000 acres of land under sugarcane cultivation and deals with almost 70000 farmers engaged in sugarcane cultivation. The factories are a testimony of Parrys commitment to the socio-economic development of the farming community. 

As part of this commitment, some of the services provided to farmers are:

• Services to farmers in the areas of nursery management, sampling of soil for fertiliser application.

• Regular demonstrations and field visits to create awareness on new technologies like farm mechanisation, deep trench and wetland planting, new varieties etc.

• Plant protection measures to protect the crops from loss caused by plant and pest diseases.

• Regular information dissemination and awareness is created through training of farmers.

• In house publications, pamphlets, television, video films and radio are also used as medium of communication.

• For the first time in India, crop insurance for sugarcane was introduced at Nellikuppam.

Development of the various sections of the society and preservation of the environment is one of the fundamental beliefs of Parry. With a view to developing a strong environment management system, the Pudukottai unit has obtained the ISO 14001 certification and is now on the journey to obtain the ISO 18001 certification.

The Pudukottai unit is a fully automated plant and has a 2500 TCD capacity with only 65 people working in Autonomous Work Teams. There is an ongoing Greenfield project commissioned as recently as 2000. The other two plants located at Pugulur and Pettavaithallai with TCD capacity of 4000 and 2500 respectively complete the picture. 

Investment in R&D is another off the beaten track route taken by E.I.D. The R&D center located at Bangalore has its units at all the plant locations. Its activities cover:

• Production of tissue culture seedling (3.5 million seedlings);

• Soil analysis, pest & disease management

• Breeding of cane varieties to produce Hybrid canes.