The Sustainable Sugarcane Initiative (SSI) is an innovative set of agronomic practices that involves using less seeds, raising seeds in a nursery, and following new planting methods, with wider seed spacing, and better water and nutrient management to increase the cane yields significantly.

Features of SSI:

• Less seed: Saving in seed material.
• Healthy seedling of 25-35 days old from nursery.
• Wide spacing: Go for intercropping.

• Water saving by drip irrigation.
• Less cost for transplantation.
• Adapting to new varieties.
• Inter-crop provides an additional income.

•   Intercropping is a multiple cropping practice that involves growing two or more crops in proximity.

•   Intercropping is the cultivation of two or more crops simultaneously on the same field.

•   Intercropping can benefit resource partitioning, mutualism and pest management.

•   The most common goal of intercropping is to produce a greater yield on a given piece of land by making use of resources or ecological processes that would otherwise not be utilized by a single crop.

•   Reasons for intercropping include saving space and resources, ensuring better yields in case of poor returns of the main culture, repelling pests, reducing weeds, proving nutrients for the neighboring plants, among others.