aug 31, 2006
the ITC echaupals were the first example of change and disintermediation that in theory would help the producer at the start of the supply chain.
now other big players are getting into the business
http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/2006/09/04/8384865/index.htm
(thanks to reader kapidhwaja for the pointer)
i believe in the long run we'll all wonder how blind nehruvians had been to the potential of india's agribusiness, with their grandiose plans for heavy industry which made no sense at all.
agriculture is going to be india's savior, not grimy factories. nor, alas, masses of technorobots in bpos.
biotechnology, herbs for ayurveda, indigenous plantation crops, ... the list is endless.
we need to provide irrigation and proper refrigeration, processing and distribution mechanisms. india will be the equivalent of america and australia and canada in its productivity.
as it is, india is the world's largest producer of fruits and the second largest producer of vegetables, but much of it is lost to spoilage and pests. so the gap is in the infrastructure, as usual.
if only the idiot governments would concentrate on this instead of on ridiculous (but good for personal gain) issues like nuclear energy!
2 comments:
For employment-based growth that does not harm the ecology, there is nothing like agriculture for India. A lot of people do not realise that
# India's irrigated land at 480,000 sq km is more than twice that of the United States at 207,000 sq km .
# In terms of arable land India vs. US is near parity (1664986 vs. 1740202) inspite of our total land mass being one third of the US (2,973,190 vs. 9,158,960)!
Throughout the ages - the thing that has attracted invaders to India is wealth founded on agricultural yields.
The biggest Threat in a SWOT analysis for our agricultural sector would have to falling groundwater levels. India gets enough rainfall every year to last until the next monsoon (and even further) - but we do not harvest enough of it. Here is another challenge for civil engineering students at the IIT's. Can we harvest enough water over ground (preferred) or underground (second choice) to kick-start this sector? If we can build sustainable over-ground harvesting mechanisms, we could cut down on power subsidies to the agriculture sector.
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