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I expect the trend to continue and get worse. India is on the verge of having serious issue with its food supply. To keep its share of importation stable, given
by brmgb 3y ago
I expect the trend to continue and get worse. India is on the verge of having serious issue with its food supply. To keep its share of importation stable, given the current population growth, the country needs its production to grow by 20% (by weight) in the next 25 years. That’s basically a bit more than 1% a year. The potential is definitely there but as far as I know the growth has been slightly under target for the past few years. I fully expect imports to rise and exports to be banned more and more often for the foreseeable future. Famine is unlikely but definitely a risk.
- JumpCrisscross 3y agoIndian agriculture is run as a jobs programme. If it modernised production, there is plenty of room for efficiency gains.
- mrguyorama 3y agoA lot of farming indians are extremely untrustworthy of "modernization" of farming because it means near total reliance on American megacorps that already abuse american farmers, let alone people in an entirely separate country with even lower means.
- JumpCrisscross 3y agoOne, that’s totally untrue. Tractors, for instance, have nothing to do with American mega corps. Two, whatever, the reasons manufactured to keep productivity low are irrelevant. The sector is being run inefficiently to keep a surplus of farmers employed. High food costs are a political choice.
- rowanG077 3y agoThis comment is so funny it's almost satire. Look at John deere to see how fun tractors can be.
- JumpCrisscross 3y ago> Look at John deere to see how fun tractors can be Does John Deere have a global monopoly? Resisting modernisation because John Deere are dicks is textbook misdirection. (Out of the top-ten selling tractors in India, John Deere has one—the 5510–on the list.)
- rowanG077 3y agoIt fortunately doesn't have a monopoly because Indias farmers are smarter then US farmers. That is independent of the fact that John Deere equipment is basically the highest tech you can get.
- JumpCrisscross 3y ago> doesn't have a monopoly because Indias farmers are smarter then US farmers Still totally wrong. John Deere is a top-selling tractor, but it’s far from a monopoly. It’s optimised for large farms; with its technological supremacy it lets high labour cost American farms beat emerging-market farms on cost per calorie. Deere & Company has a power imbalance with small farmers, but nobody is forced to buy their tractors.
- fatfingerd 3y agoSounds like you are saying that after a liberalization in attitudes toward modern farming, most Indian farmers wouldn't have to choose John Deere, only the Indian mega farms that would under cut them on price per calorie would have to?
- cpursley 3y agoIronically, there’s some Indian tractor brands that sell well in the US (and are quite good bang for the buck).
- brmgb 3y agoThere definitely is. I don’t think it’s impossible at all. That’s what I meant by: “The potential is definitely there”. But mismanagement until it is too late is definitely a risk. The country should be able to solve that with some imports provided it wants to.