2nd green revolution

Indian government is allowing 74% FDI in Indian telecom sector and in very near future this government will also allow the FDI in retail sector. Indian retail industry market share is believed to be around 600 to 700 billion dollars. But the government legislation for FDI in retail is not expected atleast till 2008 mid. I should not say this as a problem because these types of delays will be there in democratic countries if they are nearing any elections and that’s what happening in India as well.

But the time has come for the entrepreneurs and other business leaders to see where the investment should be made when once this FDI policy is announced. And also they should think about which business will be booming when once this FDI policy in retail is announced.

The Reliance and Bharati enterprises are the classic examples for us to analyze about how the retailers will do business when once the FDI policy is announced. Since, Reliance and Bharati Enterprises have already forayed into retail business. These two companies thought differently but in same frequency “Why don’t we go to the producers rather than going to distributors?” that was a master stroke idea from these two companies. Now this idea is benefiting lots of farmers in Maharashtra state. This success formula will be replicated by many future retailers and as a result of this the ultimate beneficiaries will be the farmers.

But to become successful in the business the quality of the product which you produce should not be compromised. This is an age old philosophy which need to be followed and will be followed in future as well. So, these retailers must be careful and will be careful of there product. But in order to ensure good quality one cannot bring Banana from banana republic or coffee from Brazil or Apples from Swiss to sell in Mumbai or New Delhi. So they have to depend on food produced in India.

But to the contrast India wastes lot of vegetables even before they come to market. These losses are because of lack of proper pest control mechanism, lack of proper coordinated efforts to increase the yields, lack of proper infrastructure for food preservation and food transportation. Successive governments in India have proved to be taking these issues seriously.

In 1970s India was having severe food shortage and the result was green revolution by India. During that time the problem was food shortage and now this time the problem is food wastage and improper crop protection mechanism.

India did the first green revolution by giving lot of subsides to farmers in form of free electricity, waving off the farm loans, fertilizers in subsidized prices and high quality seeds.

But now unlike to first green revolution the second green revolution should focus on proper coordinated efforts to increase the yields, to create proper infrastructure for food preservation and food transportation.

The crop protection mechanism which we design should be scientifically and not symptomatically. We need to create protection mechanisms which can foresee the problems rather than after see the results. So for this we need centralized online crop protection mechanism. The government should along with the team of agricultural scientist do the job of crop analysis and crop monitoring. This will enable the government to advice farmers about what is happening and what can be done in order to maximize the profit.

But then we encounter another question of how to do this and what technology we can use. For past so many years India has invested huge sums of money in satellite technology and has made excellent progress in it but inspite of this progress we and all the satellite operators will have the difficulties in using this satellite technology for online crop monitoring techniques. So apart from this another technology we can use is GSM.

When this GSM technology is used means it needs considerable number of BTSs in the field. So that the electromagnetic reflection from the ground, plants, water soil etc can be imaged and can be studied by the experts to analyze about the condition of the farm lands.

And this is the gold rush for the GSM operators and GSM equipment vendors. Still recently and even to this minute these GSM operators feels that if we put the BTSs in the rural places no tom dick and harry will make money. To some extent it true as well. But once if vendors come out with this crop monitoring facility in there BTSs the GSM operators will go for it. These facilities can be used by the retailers and government to inform the farmers in advance about the potential problem which he or she will be facing it.

So as result of these efforts farmers will benefit, GSM operators will benefit, government will benefit, retailers will benefit and it will be win win situation for everybody.

Every impact and every stone thrown in water will have ripple effect. This huge success will create a mammoth ripple effect in terms of new vendors, new operators doing FDI in telecom, agriculture, retail etc.

Different policies proposed by different people will have different advantages and disadvantages. The excellent policy today will be obsolete tomorrow. So government should try to make the citizens and policies dynamic. So that both can absorb changes with right frame of mind and at right speed.