MY ARTICLE WHICH GOT PUBLISHED IN INDIAN EXPRESS

Strategic India:Rise of the guru
All rise towards their strengths. The best cook makes the meals. The mechanically-inclined person fixes the squeaky door. The plant lover tends the garden. Businesses gravitate around core competencies. Likewise nations aspire for global competitiveness. As the world turns to a single global village, opening plethora of opportunities and challenges, it is imperative for economies to adopt a rigorous approach to identifying and defining what gives them the cutting edge and then single-mindedly pursue them. India should do to this too.
There are three tests for identifying areas that give competitive advantage to business, which can also be applicable for economies at global level, viz.,
· The competence provides potential access to a wide variety of markets.
· It makes a significant contribution to the benefits of the product as perceived by the end user
· It should be difficult for competitors to imitate

In India, the Agriculture sector looks very promising in this regard.
Agriculture, since time immemorial, has been the main stream of the Indian economy, both in terms of quantity of agriculture produce and volume of employment that the sector generates. Recent advancement in science and technology, globalization and transformation in eating habits, vast opportunities have opened up for development of food products from agriculture produce, in terms of varieties, scale and quality. Thus, providing for high value addition, opportunity for diverse utilization of agricultural surplus, and generation of highly skilled man power resources especially for the stagnant rural sector has become essentially important. Chandrababu Naidu aptly comments, “In information technology, we are global leaders. So, why can’t we become global leaders in food supply also?”
With 184 million hectares of arable land, producing annually 90 million tones of milk, 150 million tones of fruits and vegetables, 485 million livestock, 204 million tones food grain, 6.3 million tones fish, 489 million poultry and 45,200 million eggs, India's agricultural production base is vast and varied. What could give an acerbic advantage is the processing of it. The current levels of processing around 2.2% in fruits and vegetables, 35% in milk, 21% in meat and 6% in poultry products, etc. is very low, offering immense potential for investment in this sector.
Currently it is estimated that on an average only 2 per cent of agricultural produce is preserved for processing because of a lack of facilities for storage. In the US some 70 per cent of agricultural produce is currently processed. Food processing covers a spectrum of products from sub sector comprising agriculture, horticulture, plantation, animal husbandry and fisheries. In order to increase the share of agriculture in the GDP, the country needs to efficiently and effectively tap the food processing industry.
Many industry observers believe that the Indian food processing industry is a sleeping giant and that such initiatives will encourage the rapid growth of the industry, which could eventually make it a world-wide force to be reckoned with.
So, what should be done? Global competitiveness is built through a process of continuous improvement and enhancement. It should constitute the focus for an all-round strategy. If the goal is to build world class leadership, governance must ensure value addition by articulating the strategic architecture that guides the process of competence building.
In the developed countries processed food and fresh food prices are usually within a reasonable comparative range. At times processed foods are even cheaper than fresh food. In India, however due to a variety of factors processed foods prices are substantially higher than fresh food. Given the objectives which are achieved by processing there is an urgent need to take measures to reduce costs, and make processed food affordable.
Infrastructure for this sector is lacking. Deficiencies exist for grading and packing besides pre-cooling at farm site which could feed into a formalized cold chain. Physical marketing and warehousing infrastructure also needs to be upgraded. Export related infrastructure agro produce especially at sea and airports needs to be strengthened. Brand building, market intelligence and a continuous watch on areas of emerging competitiveness needs to be maintained to enhance exports.
Contract farming is an intervention which appears to have helped the growth of the processing industry as well as farmer incomes. Care shall however need to be exercised to strike at the correct balance between the farmer and processors rights and obligations. The government of India really needs to divert its attention towards the ample amount of opportunities available in the above mentioned sector. The government should therefore, allow sufficient FDI across different categories of the sector.
The pace of scientific, social and economic change has accelerated. Policies need to address these changes to guard against threats as well as take advantage of opportunities. To ensure that policy remains in tune with its times, a review every five years in consultation with concerned stakeholders should be undertaken.


By
ABHISHEK RANJAN
IMED, BVU