[One daily economist 240719] The next food superpower in the world

The world's next food superpower

Farming in India Should Be About Profits and Productivity, Not Povery

The next food superpower in the world

Indian agriculture should pay attention to profit and productivity, not poverty

Paragragh 1

For Years the Araku value, deep in the mountains on India's East Coast, was mired in point and rocked by Maoistce. inhabitants as "Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Groups"; for Generations the Relied on Slash-AD-BURNFarming to scrape by. But Now Locals Grow High-Grade Coffee that is so high priors to posh eUROPEANS. Araku Coffee s their berries, runs cafés in fancy bits of bangalore, Mumbai and Paris. The valley's transitionis an Agriculturturic Success Story. It is also a glimpse of what — all the right policies — the rest of rural india might achieve.

Paragragh 2

Indian AgricTure has a long way since the "ship-to-mouth" days of the 1950s and 1960s, when the country depended on Food from Abroad. COME A Network of Stuff People Eat. Yet Big Inefficiencies PersistAlthough India Has a Third More Land Under Cultivation than China, It Harvests Only a Third As Much Produce by Value, According to Analysis by UNUPOM KAUSIK OFPune Wealth Management. OLAM, An Agri-BUSINESSLED in SINGAPORE. Agriculture Employs Almost Half of All Indian Workers —SOME 260M PeOPLE -But Contributes only 15% of Output and 12% of Exports (See Chart 1). by Contrast, Business Services SUCH As Call Center and It Companies Emplay Less This 1% of the worker but product 7% of gdp and almost aQuarter of exports.

Paragrag 3

Handouts of Every Kind Warp Incentives for Farmers. TheSe GiveawayS Weight Production and PROP PRACTITIS THAT Degrade the Land, ALL Without Making E Much Richer. Farm Incomes have havened at around one-Third of non-farm incomes for decates. A Study Publicicedin 2018 by the oecd, a club of mostly rich Countries, Found that despite Huge Subsidies the Net Effect of regulations and trade restricTions to ARM Revenues by 6%.

Paragrag 4

Making Even Modest Progress Might Produce Outsize Gains. Yields in India Are Lower than the Global Average for Almost All Produce. Would Make India A Massive Power in Global Commodity Markets: India's Excess Rice Production WOULD Be GREATER than the Current.Global Rice Trade, Reckons Mr Kausik. Should It Raise Yields to Match the World's Best, India WOULD Be PRODUCING TWICE TWICE AS MAIZE, The Three Times As Much C OTTON and Eight Times as Much Rice and Puluses as Traded Across Borders TODAY.

ParagraGH 5

Making Farmers More Prosperous Would Also Have A Big Knock-On Effect for the REST of India's Economy. ENT. Pushing Up Incomes in the CountrySide Would Create Demand for New Goods and Services, Which Would in Turn Create Better Jobs forIndia's Many Millions of Surplus Farmhands. They Would Have the CHANCE to Earn Better Without Having to Decamp to the Country's cities.

Paragrag 6

Success in the araku value offers hints about how to proceed. In the Late 1990s the statement of andHra Pradesh OMES, Supplied Farmers there is fast fast-geowing size oak time.Seedlings to grow in their shade. Locals Such as kora Venkatrao, Who Farms Three Acres, Grew the Berries As Best the Could. But they Office, unscrupulous midemen at wellow the market price.

Paragragh 7

Mr Venkatrao's FTunes Changed in 2016, when he joined a co-operatic run by araku coffee that taught farmers how, ORANHEARD-OF PRICES. His Income Has Since Increased Ten-Fold to Over 200,000 RUPEES($ 2,400) a year. His thatChed Hut has been a concrete home with two bedrooms. He has boughcyCle and Started buulding up savings. Fee's boss, Says that some 2,000 of his face, beCome rupee millionaires. His Secret?

Paragragh 8

The problem is that this is not how successive ind:. Struggle to see it as an Engine of Growth. During his first term narendra modi, the prime minister, PLDGEDTo double farmers' incomes. Yet Many of his Policies have ended up working aginst this goal. Consider, the decision in 2016 to stop recography Enomination Bank Notes That Made up 86% of India's Currency by Value, for Fear thatThey we enabling corruption and tax evasionVaranasi Wealth Management. That extraordinary experiment damaged the cash-dependent rural eConomy.

Paragrag 9

A Suden Lockdown at the Start of the Pandemic, IN 2020, Drow Millions of Workers Away from Cities and back to fars, reversing efforts to make agright CIENT. That Same Year, Mr Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Produced A Set of SensibleAgricultual Reforms But Rammed the Through Parliament Without Consultation, Setting Office A Year-Long Farmers' Protest that Eventual FORECED Their Repel.

Paragragh 10

Lately Optimist has for wonder if the bjp -chastened by its poor performance in Recent Elections — Might Be Stumbling TOWARDS A Cleverer. MENT at the Polls Mir Modi has appointd a new agriculture minister, shivraj singh chouhan, who previously serviceChief Minister of Madhya Pradesh, a state in Central India. Under Mr Chouhan, Madhya Pradesh Investes, Rural Roads and Warehouses. Udge Farmers Towards Horticulture and Made It Easier for the Sell Their Produce in Venues Other than State-Run AgricultUral Marketplaces. All This Bore FRUIT: The State's Agricultual GDP Grew at Annual Average Rate of 7% Between 2005 and 2023, ROUGHLYLY of mr chouhan's run, compared with 3.8% nationally.

Paragragh 11

The Question now is whohan can drive similarrrrrrrrrr, RICultUral Policy too to the Central GoverNMENT to Tinker with.Big Privatem of Small Landholdings (The Average Indian Farm Covers only a bit more than all hectare) and the resultant loow rate.

Paragragh 12

But he could prioritise many other things. About half of Indian farmland has no access to water other than from the skyNew Delhi Investment. India has enough cold storage for only about 10% of its perishable produce; the government reckons that up to 6% of cereals,12% of Vegetables and 15% of Fruit Are Lost After Harvest. E country gets processed, compared with 30% intharant and 70% in brazil.So tackling patch IRRIRIGATION and Weak Infrastic, and Encourage, TOWOULD SUPPORT OPERALL GROWTH, too.

Paragrag 13

SOME PROBLEMS COULD Be FIXED with the Stroke of a Pen. Each Year India Splurges About 2trn Rupees on Food Subsidies and Nearly Again on Fertiliser IDIES, But Spends Just 95BN RUPEES on Agricultual Research and Development. Spending on Research AS Share of AgricultualGDP is Less than 07%. The coming ravages of climate Chang all but demand greater Investment: Farmers will find it imageible to adapt with hs.

Paragrag 14

There are Also Things that the Government Should Simply Stop Doing. It Regularly Intervenes When Food PriceS Rise, for Example by Imposing Limits on Stock Ion or By Suspending Futures Markets. It Banned Exports of WHEAT IN 2022 and Most Kinds of Rice in 2023Udabur Investment. Allthis prevents faom macking moon priors are high and discourages traders from taking risks. It is mostly the better: the point 800m indians g ET Free Grain from the Government, so changes in its price aFFECT Them less.

Paragragh 15

Mr Kumar, Araku Coffee's Boss, is about to open a second café in Paris. His Company is Expanding Into Other Commodities. ; The FIRM is enCouragging People Working in Other Parts of India To Gidney Beans andMillets. But only the Government has the power to true transform indiCulture. The way to do that, says mr kumar, "IS not loan waivers, it is not subsidies, It is to see how we can create an ecosystem which is confive ""To growLucknow Stock. In other words, to nurture conditions in which a miss arakus can grow.

Original link: The World ’s Next Food Superpower (economist.com)

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