Speakers highlight bottlenecks and potential of Indian agriculture at IIFT Trade Conclave

The keynote speaker on the occasion was Mr. R. Shivakumar, CEO, ITC, IBD (International Business Division).
In his keynote address, Mr Shivkumar highlighted the vast potential of Indian agriculture and also discussed factors stalling the growth of this sector.Before we talk about unshackling the potential of Indian agriculture we should first understand what is holding it back. While our physical flow of goods is alright, Indian agriculture suffers from weak financial flow and very poor information flow Information flow can be improved by initiatives like ITCs e-Choupals, he said.

To cover various sectors of the food-based industry, which includes areas like fruits & vegetables, food grains, oilseeds & oil and sugar, there were speakers like Mr. K. S. Money, Chairman, APEDA; Mr. Ravindra Jain, President, Agribusiness, Adani Wilmar; Mr. Sriraj Choudhary, Head, Refineries, Cargill India; Mr. Narendra Gupta, Chief Business Officer, NCDEX; Mr. Kalyan Chakravarthy, Country-Head Agribusiness, Yes Bank; and Mr. Sanjeev Asthana, CEO, Reliance Agri. On the occasion they talked about issues related to agriculture-based trade like procurement practices, market participants, infrastructure and retailing, the Indian commodities market and the importance of financial inclusion, farm input companies as consolidators at farm level, and the learnings and unlearnings from the modern retail format.

Delivering his inaugural address and introducing the issues related to agriculture-based trade, IIFT Director Mr KT Chacko said, Agricultures impressive growth can contribute very well to the growth of the Indian economy. If agriculture does well, 52% of the workforce dependent on agriculture will also do well. This will contribute more significantly to the GDP, which contributes to Indias economic growth. But unfortunately in India, agriculture is a sector that creates unemployment and underemployment. Our knowledge of the market is not perfect.

Commenting on the issue of agriculture trade, Mr. K. S. Money said, Agriculture is Indias most important and critical sector and Indias sustained growth is possible only with the sustained growth of agriculture. Here the major concern is to provide best products to consumer at low prices. For this we have to look at the entire supply chain.

Mr. Sriraj Choudhary talked about issues in the Indian oil seeds sector. India is an oil-deficit country, and the major issues here are monsoon dependency and a lack of exposure to international prices and movements. Distribution is the major challenge we are facing today in this industry; the reason is that its a highly unorganized business with low operating standards.

Commenting on the major roadblocks to Indian horticultures supply chain management, Mr Ravindra Jain said, In India, people are not able to spend much on food.There are large numbers of lower income group whose buying capacity is very low.

The Trade Conclave 2007 is one of the series of events to be organized by IIFT this year. MBAUniverse.com is the media partner of IIFTs Conclaves. Stay tuned in to read the highlights from the Conclaves on MBAUniverse.com.