Global Food & Agri Business Recently, I spoke on the subject at a Global Oilseeds & Vegetable Oil Industry

forum, in Mumbai. The presentation is uploaded by the organisers here ~ http://www.globoilindia.com/images/GLOBOIL22%20SEP/SESSION%201/SIVA%20KUMAR%20ITC/Global%20Food%20&%20Agri%20Business%20@%20Globoil%20Mumbai%2022%20Sep%20201 2.pptx Since you will not make the head or tail of this all-picture presentation as is, I have uploaded a slidewise one-or-two-line notes to go along here... Needless to say, the actual presentation, as verbalised, had a lot more statistics, stories and examples. 1. Globoil is a global conference of the players from the oilseeds & vegetable oil industry. The theme of my presentation was 'Global Food and Agri Business'. Several dignitaries in the inaugural session, that morning, referred to the importance of "animal instinct" mentioned by the Prime Minister of India recently; I used that as a peg to kick-start my presentation, using animals symbolically. 2. This forum is all about animals :) Bulls and bears, primarily! As you know, we normally meet in this forum to debate whether the commodity prices will go up or down, over the coming twelve months. 3. We also discuss the Government Policies that impact our industry. In India, those are represented by the four faces of lion! Another animal :) 4. Occasionally, we do talk about humans too - the consumers of vegetable oils and other products from our sector. 5. I am also using animals to depict what I am going to talk about today! No, I am not going to talk about zebras; but, the picture is to just tell you that my talk will be different from any of our three regular subjects :) Basically, I have two recommendations to make to this forum... 6. In a way, all of you know for a long time, about what I am going to talk about. But, as an industry, we simply ignored those realities. It is, however, time to Wake Up. Now, before it is too late. Before I get to the core of my presentation, let me play a video showing some more animals ;-) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x4mhzViHuCY 7. 20,864. Can you guess what this number is? No, that's not the forecasted price of Soybeans next season... It is the number of people who died of hunger yesterday! 8. One in seven people in the world will go to bed hungry tonight. Yes, one of the two issues I want us to engage with today, is "hunger". 9. This is a map prepared by the World Food Programme, depicting the level of under-nourished people in different countries around the world. 10. Ironically, most of the under-nourished people are farmers - the producers of food for the world :(

11. There is an opportunity to change this situation now. The demand for food is going to expand by more than 50% by 2050 to serve a larger, richer and more urban population. Increasing the farm productivity to serve this need will also improve farm incomes, and in turn enable the farmers to afford more and better food. 12. The big challenge we need to overcome, to be able to increase farm productivity, is the small size of farms. In India, for example, the average farm size halved over the last fifty years. The small farms can be as productive, if not more, than the large farms; the key is in bringing the power of modern technology to the small farmers... 13. That brings me to my first recommendation to you today. Engage in agricultural extension work in the vicinity of your processing units, supplementing the efforts put in by the Government. 14. The second theme I want to bring up today, is the pace at which we are consuming the natural resources of the world. Per one estimate, the earth will take eighteen months to regenerate the natural resources we are using up in twelve months! 15. If we put our legs up and relax now, 16. It won't be long before our water resources dry up... 17. This map shows the projected water scarcity around the world in 2025. Scary, isn't it? 18. The world has been attempting to resolve this problem by focusing on resource-efficiency at a global level, instead of every country trying to be self-sufficient for its food requirements. In this graph, you can notice the faster pace at which the exports are growing compared to production, especially after the Agreement on Agriculture was signed under WTO in 1994. 19. As far as water is concerned, we are less endowed in India, with only 4% of world's fresh water resources, while 17% of world's population live here. 20. Considering that we do get abundant rain, but waste most of that water by letting it flow into the seas, we can improve the situation by harvesting the rain water. That's my second recommendation to you. Help form Water Users Associations of the farmers in your business vicinity, especially if it is a water-stressed area. That's the best CSR programme you can take up. 21. After listening to this long sermon from me, you have two choices. You can continue to ignore this as not your problem, and walk to the Coffee Counter across the hall, or... 22. Join a collective effort to save this world. 23. But, before you make that choice, think of this little boy walking towards the soil with a lot of hope. Mind you, not many people from the next generation want to be farmers... YOU can do something about it! Thank you!