Administration & Management

Agribusiness still requires a lot of awareness building thus more & more Interactions with people of Farming Community is the Need of the Hour.

Here, you can see Saurabh interacting with a group of farmers. The place is located in District Udham Singh Nagar and is known as Kashipur. The interactions taking place are addressed to make farmers aware of Rural Godown Scheme launched by Ministry of Agriculture, Government of India.

Wishing You and Your Family A Happy & Prosperous New Year 2010 Ahead

I welcome you all and the New Year too by the way sending a Monograph Authored by Me to the Press. Thus, I welcome one and all to 2010, by presenting a gift to World of Academia, in the form of a Technical Monograph. I am Attaching the Front & Back Cover Page for giving a glimpse of the Book along with title. So, the picture below is exactly of the same one. I welcome your comments too:

Global Trade in Herbal Medicines: An Indian Perspective – Author Saurabh Singh

Developments in Year 2009 — A One Liner Summary

Food Corpn’s open e-sale of wheat from Dec 16 (December 10, 2009)
Rs 2,801-cr credit outlay for Malappuram district (December 07, 2009)
Nabard pegs Rs 2,801-cr credit outlay for Malappuram (December 07, 2009)
Icrisat to mentor agri-biz incubators (November 27, 2009)
Model training programme (November 18, 2009)
FCI offers 2-month grain stock (November 16, 2009)
Nabard to finance joint liability groups in Bengal (November 05, 2009)
Nabard trims rates on refinance (November 05, 2009)
State Govt shuts down Karnataka Agro Corn (November 05, 2009)
Icrisat takes up village data project in Bangladesh (November 04, 2009)
Nabard okays loan to Karnataka (November 03, 2009)
TNAU’s centenary building (October 22, 2009)
Icrisat initiative for dryland farmers (October 16, 2009)
ICAR to Webcast, blog farm tech initiatives (October 07, 2009)
Tuber crops training course (October 06, 2009)
Icrisat joins climate change initiative (September 22, 2009)
ICRISAT asks govt to buy seeds for next kharif (August 18, 2009)
ICAR launches project for mass media support (August 11, 2009)
Organic farm products exchange centres soon (August 08, 2009)
Nabard sanctions Rs 307 cr to Bengal under RIDF (July 29, 2009)
Crida allays fears on monsoon shortfall (July 23, 2009)
Nabard does not forsee drop in credit offtake (July 15, 2009)
Short-term crops mooted to overcome monsoon delay (July 04, 2009)
Farmers’ clubs in Tirunelveli (June 22, 2009)
‘TNAU will focus on education, R&D’ (June 08, 2009)
Fisheries research body farms spiny lobster in open cages (June 03, 2009)
ICAR’s market intelligence cells (May 09, 2009)
Kerala agri varsity in pact for space biology project (April 24, 2009)
Agri varsity offers biological options to chemical pesticides (April 22, 2009)
Nabard’s loan disbursal grows by 29% in 2008-09 (April 10, 2009)
Nabard Bengal to focus on financial inclusion (April 03, 2009)
Icrisat sounds warning on food front (April 03, 2009)
Nabard sets up 108 farmers’ clubs (March 25, 2009)
Nabard programme on agri marketing (March 05, 2009)
Nabard sees Rs 45,000-cr credit potential for TN (February 20, 2009)
Nabard plans farmer self-help groups (February 15, 2009)
Nabard, Jain Irrigation sign MoU for village development (February 15, 2009)
New chief for Nabard (AP) (February 04, 2009)
‘Banks must improve credit flow to revive economy’ (February 04, 2009)
Nabard sanctions Rs 51 cr to Kerala (February 04, 2009)
Nabard sees credit potential of Rs 25,927 cr in Gujarat (February 04, 2009)
Nabard finalises Rs 203.81-cr credit plan for Sikkim (January 24, 2009)
Nabard sees Rs 29,999-cr credit flow to Maharashtra (January 21, 2009)

Compiled Courtesy “Hindu Group – Business Online”  – For Academic Use only.

———-Always Yours’ as Usual —- Saurabh

TIME FOR AGRICULTURE TO METAMORPHOSE IN AGRIBUSINESS

Saurabh Singh, Faculty Agribusiness Management; Pantnagar

A significant worldwide trend in public policy in recent years has been to disengage decades of direct government involvement in the agricultural sector. Price supports, input subsidies, and publicly owned agriculture-related institutions have been increasingly dismantled in favor of private market determination of prices and other incentives. Generally speaking, the arguments in favor of this approach center on the anticipated gains in production efficiency that would arise from free movement of resources. Contributing to this trend toward free market economies are the growing global efforts to liberalize trade by lowering tariffs, harmonizing other standards, and facilitating foreign direct investment. While the short-term adjustments to increased competition are recognized as potentially painful, it is generally agreed that medium to long-term gains more than compensate. Nevertheless, in a very real sense, the adjustment to removal of both domestic support structures and barriers to external competition may be especially painful for smaller producers, a group which is often the target of poverty alleviation measures.

When public support has been extensive and in place for long periods of time, private market offerings have typically been stifled if not forbidden. This implies that there may be some delay between public sector withdrawal of services and their replacement by private enterprises. Therefore, an effective adjustment strategy in the post-reform era must include components that boost the ability of smaller producers to respond effectively to market incentives. The development efforts must begin to strengthen the price side of producer income in ways that do not undermine efforts to reduce government involvement. More emphasis must be placed on facilitating the marketing aspects of agriculture, i.e., agribusiness, for producers with limited resources. Key is assisting producers to overcome problems of imperfect markets and empowering them to be competitive participants in the market system.

These efforts have had a significant impact as the processed food sector is attracting a lot of investments. This sector registered a growth rate of 8.5 percent during 2006-07. However, several schemes and projects which look good on paper have not taken off as expected. Key problems include weakness in implementation, lack of creating forward and backward linkages resulting in huge losses due to sub-optimal or non use of created infrastructure.

From the development perspective, critical issues for inclusive and equitable growth are involvement of small and marginal farmers in value chains, linking farmers to markets and other initiatives such as “Rural Business Hub”, formation of “producer companies” will contribute to linking farmers to markets. The processing is in the unorganized sector, enabling this sector to meet the requirements of the new food safety laws is critical to link them to the modern system. In addition to this, balanced regional growth throughout the country is also important so that each area gets a fair chance to share the benefits of this metamorphosis.

Indian food-processing sector is undergoing rapid transformation. As the economy of the country moves on the path of development, agricultural sector evolves from traditional subsistence level farming to commercial agriculture producing high value and processed products. There is high potential demand in the domestic as well as export market. On the supply side, with vast arable land and agro-climatic diversity, India has the potential to be a food basket of the world. With this interaction of demand and supply forces the food processing sector has the potential to be the driver of economic growth and enhance rural incomes. Food Processing Industry is widely recognized as a ‘sunrise industry’ with a vision to make India the Food Basket of the world, achieve what has been achieved in the field of computer technology.

While steps have been taken in the right direction, the critical issues in the way forward are inclusive and equitable growth by ensuring participation of small and marginal farmers, backward areas and regions and small and micro enterprises in the value chains. It has been observed in various developing countries around the world that benefits of the modernizing sector do not automatically accrue to all stakeholders in the system. Particularly at risk are small scale farmers, faced with increasingly strict agro-industry standards and contractual arrangements, and small scale traders, processors, wholesale markets and retailers, who must compete with large food suppliers and manufacturers.

Recognizing the importance of agro industry development in enhancing rural incomes and agribusiness development with inclusive growth it has become clear worldwide that the most rapid growth in agriculture has for quite some time been occurring in post-production activities. This is in large part being driven by the growing number of middle income consumers even in lower income countries and their demands for better quality value-added products. Agri-food systems world-wide are increasingly being dominated by vertically coordinated, if not vertically integrated, organizations. High concentration and vertical co-ordination of agri-food systems is already a reality in high income countries.

Negligible presence of agro-industry and agribusiness resulting in low level of value addition of agricultural commodities has been one of the main causes for stagnation in rural incomes. Conversely, an analysis across countries and regions, substantial agribusiness sector generating high value addition to the outflow of goods, correlate with a higher level of agricultural GDP and rural incomes. Thus, with increasing incomes, agribusiness development is inevitable. Now only thing required is to make sure that all the stake holders are treated in an equitable and fair manner.

———-Always Yours’ as Usual —- Saurabh

“Agribusiness Management“

You Can Expect to Get an Answer for Quarries on the The Discipline Known as “Agribusiness Management”.

Initially, to emphasize and make a mark, remember that the Agribusiness has some thing to do with

the  elements listed below at points  1 through 3.

Probably, now you can allow me to rest and think that whenever  & wherever you will have an encounter with term ‘Agribusiness’;you will always recall from where to get the info required.

Thanks & Good Luck

———-Always Yours’ as Usual —- Saurabh