Posted on 05/26/2006 6:33:32 PM PDT by Mrs. Don-o
JALLOWAL, India Within days, the monsoon will arrive in India. If generous, it will lend another year of survival to hundreds of millions of villagers. ...But now a country that long struggled to feed itself is making preparations to feed the world.
Multinational companies from Wal-Mart to Rothschild Group to PepsiCo are wagering that India could parlay its tropical climate and the latent energies of hundreds of millions of farm dwellers into a position as an agribusiness powerhouse, exporting fruits and vegetables, spices, flowers, wine, ice cream, poultry, shrimp, fish and even pasta.
"To my mind, this opportunity of agriculture is an opportunity which is larger than telecom, which is larger than IT," said Rakesh Mittal, vice chairman of Bharti Enterprises, a $16 billion Indian holding company ...which recently announced that it was investing with Rothschild Group, a European private equity group, in a venture called Field Fresh, which will export onions, chilies, okra and other vegetables to Western retailers, including Tesco of Britain.
...But the company is exploring India as a source of "premium exports," including items like long-grain basmati rice, spices and fresh fruits like mangoes, said Beth Keck, a company spokeswoman.
"We have stores in 15 countries, and there are some very attractive products grown in India that we would like to export," she said.
Rajesh Srivastava, managing director in India of Rabobank, said lenders now regard the Indian farm sector as the next outsourcing story after information technology. "If IT is serious business today," he said, "agribusiness will be three times as serious five years from today."
(Excerpt) Read more at iht.com ...
Hopeful! Beautiful!
This could be phenomenal ... if they can just keep the government from ruining it.
Good news for a change...
Oh no! Not the Rothschilds! It's all part of the conspiiiiiiracy!! < tinfoil="off">
(Yawn........)
http://www.agriculture-industry-india.com/agricultural-commodities/buffalo-meat.html
"The per capita consumption of beef / buffalo in India is 2.8 kg, about half that of fish, but more than twice the average intake of mutton, pork and poultry. According to statistics compiled by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the total number of animals slaughtered for meat in India rose from 66,299,600 head in 1980 to 106,239,000 head in 2000, nearly doubling. There was a rise in the total number of cows and buffaloes slaughtered for meat in India from 15,644,000 head in 1980 to 24,300,000 head in 2000, an increase in total beef meat and buffalo meat production of 1,673,972 in 1980 to 2,863,400 in 2000."
From 1980 to 2000? Great. It's only taken 2 decades to start getting a clue. "Experts" can say whatever they wish about a vegetarian diet. With 1 billion+ people, there's only so much arable land that can support you.
Sorry, you're an idiot. Livestock for human consumption require far more land to support than vegetables for the same population.
""Experts" can say whatever they wish about a vegetarian diet. With 1 billion+ people, there's only so much arable land that can support you."
Personally I am a beef eating Hindu but take it for fact, vegetarian diet consumes much less resources compared to non-vegetatian diet.
That would be true if we were talking about the 1800s, ranges, and cattle drives. It's not done like that anymore. Technology has allowed advances in feed that do just the opposite of what you state. Try not to be an idiot before accusing someone else of being one.
A majority of Hindus would eat beef if they would get a safe and clean enough supply of beef...The main problem is that the refrigeration facilities are non existent or very costly....Electrical power is unreliable....So meat is better consumed withinn hours of slaughter...That explains the small size of that industry....
You would be surprized to know that India has almost as much arable land as the whole of united states...Also most of the arable land in India can be cultivated twice a year because there is less severe winter with no snow in majority of the area...India can produce as much or more than the United states as far as food is concerned...
And even in case of non vegeterian diet sea food, mutton, pork and poultry are much cheaper and easier to produce as compared to beef.
On the contrary, I'm quite correct. The majority of the beef, not dairy, cattle industry is in the West and Southwest in places where the land is less suitable for crop growing.
I agree that this is a good initiative.
But please be sceptical about initatives like this in India. This is sure to bring the Communists onto the streets. They will protest about the US Capitalist / Imperialist gameplan to starve the world. Just wait and watch.
Communists ought to be relentlessly and publically confronted with their own mass-stavations, which were not coincidental or collateral but quite deliberate: the Ukraine under Stalin, Cambodia under Pol Pot, China under Mao, North Korea under Kim Il Sung and his equally murderous son Kim Jong Il---
From this article, it looks as if the mega-capitalists are actually going to depend on the small producers, the small landowners. That's extra and specially good news.
In an ideal world - YES. But the Commies and the Jihadis have perfected the art of lying and propaganda. Has any jihadi ever apologised for 911. Have any of the communists taken responsibility for the mass murders of 10s of millions of people. They never did and never will. From this article, it looks as if the mega-capitalists are actually going to depend on the small producers, the small landowners. That's extra and specially good news.
Well..it is the only way for india. India desperately needs good infrastructure for transportation and storage, a good financing system and finally the likes of monsanto to deliver genetically altered seeds.
Indeed in India the transportation and storage of meat facilities are practically non existent at a retail level..When they want to export they do come up with those facilities...They export meat to the Gulf/Arab countries...
The agricultural land ownership is scattered like anything..There are laws banning ownership of agri land by corporations...There is also a ceiling on how much land a person can own..That ceiling is very low...Farms in the US are a few thousand acres each...But in India the average farm size is never more than 100 odd acres because of strange laws....
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