By Binu Alex
Do you know what is the first thing a curious commodity investor will do to get information on crop pattern in India? S/he will go to the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) website and search for the data s/he needs. And, chances are that s/he will find faster and better information from the USDA website than India’s own agriculture ministry site?

This is not because the agriculture minister is busy in cricket, but partly because the Indian government is yet to adapt to technology and mainly because we have a system whereby the government is not bound to inform the farmers any information on crops, weather or global demand and supply.

This is the general trend in agriculture and the poor farmers are in the lurch since they have very little idea which crop to choose from. The tragic plight of many of these farmers in the now infamous ‘suicide zones’ points us to the failure of the government to come out with a basic but strong network of information that can help farmers.

I have seen farmers in Maharashtra and Gujarat selecting Cotton last year to their traditional pulses or other staple crops because they got the information from some ‘reliable’ sources that cotton is in short supply and prices would go up steeply. This information spread like wild fire and wherever I went, I saw the same reaction from farmers. But the data showed something else. Cotton was in abundance and there was no need for any more cotton as I saw it.

But then a group of farmers told me they have no other option. “If we grow any staple food, there is no demand when the harvesting season approaches. We have to depend on the government to fix a higher MSP. Moreover, these crops like maize, bajra, Wheat etc are vulnerable and therefore not reliable,” one of the farmers in one remote village in Saurashtra told me. They have got good rains this year but are apprehensive on shifting crops from cotton.

Now this applies even to students and a growing community of analysts. We had a talent hunt recently to find suitable candidates for our research. We already had people in metals, bullion and energy and doing well within themselves. But the real aim was to find people exclusively for agri-commodity research. It was not merely to generate trading calls but also to cater to a few clients abroad who are our subscribers in a few agri -commodity paid services and asked for more services.

It was then I realized how we lag behind in terms of agri-information. There were people who could read charts, there were guys who knew fundamentals and predict – to a certain extent – where the prices could head to. But our research guys who were conducting interviews on the applicants could find hardly anyone who applied mind over body to agri-business.

They reported to me that those with greater depth are already employed elsewhere. True, but we were on the lookout for freshers. Most of the guys, who claimed themselves to be agri-experts have never seen a remote village, leave alone the commodities they are going to work on. Most of them were from rich families. They did their Finance stream from urban college which never went beyond their classroom curriculum.

But one applicant was different. He told me the crop cycle, production scenario, demand and supply gap and also how much will the Indian population need and how much will be left for other countries. He also explained to me the fiasco and the advantages of MSP and also how the farmers will never have the first hand information for any agri-commodities.

He came from an agriculture college and he was taught the basics of agriculture. I felt he was trained in his college to become a farmer. Though he applied everything that is necessary for any agri-commodity analysis, he could never tell me the basics of a chart, how analysis is done or how electronic exchanges play a role in prices of commodities.

So here is the problem. The real problem of a gap between theory and practical solutions. Those who pass out of management institutes are far away from reality and those who really make deep into the subject practically are not even close to managing a business.

Though India is an agrarian economy – at least some of us still call it as one – agriculture analysis is not something that is rewarded well. So will a student fresh out of an agriculture college make it to a management job? Perhaps there will be a drop in the confidence level of such a candidate. But take the other way round. A management student will jump into this bandwagon even if he doesn’t have an iota of knowledge about agriculture.

It is the level of confidence that I have seen lacking in students directly related to agriculture. Why I didn’t get application from a majority of agri-students despite mentioning in the newspaper ad that we are looking for agri-related position is an indicator to that trend. And the Government of India is completely responsible for not giving the country sufficient talent to help and guide farmers, the architects of food security to a billion Indians.

Binu Alex is Editor-in-Chief and Director, Commodity Online Group

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