“India – what an eye opener,” says friend and colleague John Duvenaud of Winnipeg, Man. He recently returned from India where he attended the World Bean Congress . “There is industrial scale farming but the bulk by far is one or 2 acre plots with oxen or horses – no fertilizer, bin run
seed, primitive equipment.
Indian yields are about 20 bushels per acre. There is certainly potential to increase production but my feeling is that things won’t change a lot. What is happening is that the people are getting richer in a hurry. India has, or soon will, pass China in growth rate of eight to nine percent a year. A common sight – newly rich kids drinking Coke and carrying a big belly. Even the beggar children have fat cheeks. Poor people actually have very healthy diets. They eat lots of lentils and chickpeas, very little, or no, meat. Spend any time in a city and it’s clear that westerners have no monopoly on obesity.
From Food to Fuel
However, Duvenaud says the burgeoning demand for crops as energy, as opposed to just food and animal feed, has produced a sea change in the mid and long-term outlooks for Prairie crop markets, and raised market prices already by much more than expected. Between ethanol, already established in North America, and biodiesel, expected to see the strongest growth worldwide in 2006 and 2007, there will be substantial new demand for North American farmers to sell into in the years ahead.
This concerns India a whole lot…The fight could well be between food and fuel consumers.