An incredible journey through India (II)

India will also have to develop food safety (quality) and traceability, develop environmental protection laws, improve labor laws that definitely will increase its production cost in the future, like what I have seen in Brazil in the last 10 years.

Productivity of Indian agriculture is still very low and this means that several growth possibilities are possible. In China, the average size of properties is half the size of India, but productivity is the double in most crops. India produces as average, 50, 60% of the world’s benchmark in each crop, meaning that it is possible to improve production in India, using the same land.

The agenda of Indian’s agriculture is not different from most of the countries. It involves:

a) Increase in social improvement programs – it was said about a desire to increase social security programs with a focus more on investments and less on subsidies, to make these programs more sustainable.

b) Research and development – attract more private investments to research, considering local specificities and farmers needs, more private and public partnerships, research driven to reduce countries disparities, promoting more extension to reach farmers with innovation outputs. Increasing research towards water uncertainty.

c) Human capital – increase youth health, nutrition and education, capacity building for agriculture and also vocational training.

d) More value capture and diversification – intensification of crops (from grains to poultry), diversification to crops where lands could be more used and supply more value (from sugar cane to horticulture and fruit production) and efforts to improve collective actions of farmers.

e) Infrastructure – improve in investments of rural infrastructure, build more storage capacity, water storage capacity, stock operation and policies, improvement of cold chains, among others.

f) Increase in agricultural production – increase in yields, modern farm technology, storage and waste, irrigation, access to credit, land lease and land management, more mechanization (improving number of tractors, harvesters, and other equipment)

g) Institutional environment – gradually move to a less regulated and more market driven agricultural chains, with clear, efficient and better managed organizations promoting institutional development.

India is a fascinating country. I really think that it is in India that we will see real and fast changes in the world. Even with the chances to increase agricultural output due to more productivity, with the growth expected for the next 10-15 years in the income and population, huge urbanization and minimum wage and social support programs, I believe India tends to strongly increase its participation in world food imports and definitely will be one of the superpowers in world economy, GDP, products and services trade.

The author is professor of strategic planning and food chains at the School of Economics and Business, University of Sao Paulo, Brazil (www.favaneves.org) and international speaker. Author of 25 books published in 8 countries and in China, “The World on the Tongue”.