What’s the fastest growing sector of the Indian economy....farming
What’s the fastest growing sector of the Indian economy? Technology? No. NASSCOM forecasts single-digit growth for the third consecutive year. How about real estate and construction? Wrong again. New regulations and demonetization will take a long time to overcome. The right answer is food. Huge demand, big profits, vast international reach, this industry has grown over 12% annually for almost two decades, doubling the GDP rate. Worth less than $200 billion just two years ago, the Indian food marketplace is expected to reach $540 billion in another two years. In this country, money literally grows on trees (and every other source of edibles).
Exports power this amazing story. Back in 2014, the US Department of Agriculture heralded the new global food superstar, “India’s export growth over the past decade has been the highest of any country, with an annual rate of over 21%. India has become a very important player on the global market, especially for rice, cotton, sugar, and beef.” In just one decade, agricultural exports ramped up from $5 billion to $39 billion, more than double that of all 28 countries of the European Union combined.
Even better news, the minister for Commerce and Industry, Suresh Prabhu is forcefully implementing PM Narendra Modi’s vision of “doubling farmer’s income” by 2022. He recently released a most impressive draft agriculture exports plan, which aims to “integrate Indian farmers and farm products to the global value chain.” This is eminently sound, playing directly to the country’s inherent strengths. India has almost 160 million hectares of arable land, second after the United States, but its irrigated crop area is the largest in the world. In addition, some 50% of the national workforce is already dedicated to agriculture, which constitutes an extraordinary reservoir of manpower.
Unfortunately, for far too long, and unconscionably right into the 21stcentury, these immense natural advantages were squandered by mismanagement, carelessness and neglect. Incredibly inefficient supply chains continue to waste over 30% of the nation’s produce. Terrible transportation systems, woefully inadequate irrigation, and clumsily implemented (often contradictory) policies have resulted in shameful scenarios for both consumers and producers. Even today, Indian farmers routinely receive 10% or less of the final retail price of their fruit, vegetables, meat and eggs. In Europe and North America, that ratio is 60-80%, with a far smaller percentage taken by middlemen.
Much the same is desired here, thus Prabhu’s focus on exports, which opens up terrific opportunity for Goa. Miguel Braganza, the Chairperson of the Goa Chamber of Commerce and Industry committee on agriculture, says, “with a change of mindset, agriculture can boom in Goa. Entrepreneurs are being guided to develop their own projects and implement them irrespective of subsidies. They can always avail of the government help available but don’t need to design their projects to avail of subsidies. The focus must be on production, value addition and profits.” He points to Dr. Kurade’s mushrooms in Ponda and Canacona, where under the second generation of family leadership, “current production is about 8-12 tonnes of mushrooms per day, or around 12,000 tonnes per year.”
Another farmer bravely pursing high value agriculture in Goa is Ajay Naik, whose Letcetera Agritech started with one hydroponics farm in 2016, then quickly expanded to three. He says, “our production [of lettuce, herbs and other greens] is going to hit 9 tons per month by the end of this year. Currently Goa consumes around 300-400 tons of vegetables per day. We want to grow all that instead of importing, and create jobs in high tech agriculture for Goan youths.This state has proven excellent for us as there was a big population which understands the health risks of consuming food which has chemical pesticides. Once they tasted our vegetables, there was no going back for them. We have customers who said our lettuce tastes like Love. It gave us a good boost to continue our dreams.”
Naik shifted from a successful IT career to growing vegetables. Braganza agrees innovative thinking can reap spectacular rewards in this rapidly ascendant sector of the economy, “Goa needs agricultural entrepreneurs, who are are able and willing to take a calculated risk and invest time and money into value addition. The future is in this.” As mighty oaks from tiny acorns grow, the roots of our collective prosperity and happiness might well derive from these hopeful steps in the right direction in India’s smallest state, and across the landscape of the country.
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