I guess you are referring to below:Gus wrote:Some months ago I read an article of an IIT-M grad experimenting in farming part time and then turned full time. He adapted / adopted several Israeli techniques to farm in semi arid water shortfall area near chennai. Will try to fish it later and post it.
There is no secret sauce. These are the expected gross incomes based on simple calculations.Abhijeet wrote:RamaY, can you explain in a few lines what is the "secret sauce" in your model that allows for such high incomes from agriculture?
The reason there must be a secret sauce is that no country has been able to do what you are proposing - keep a large percentage of the population in agriculture and simultaneously grow rich.RamaY wrote:There is no secret sauce. These are the expected gross incomes based on simple calculations.Abhijeet wrote:RamaY, can you explain in a few lines what is the "secret sauce" in your model that allows for such high incomes from agriculture?
You have left out about 60% of the cropped land in your calculation.RamaY wrote:Irrigated Land = 137,904,571 Acres
Current Agri GDP = $273,000,000,000
Per Acre GDP = $1,980
Avg. Food grains / Acre = 35 quintals
* This rate of ($57) Rs. 2,658/quintal may seem high for rice like items. But when you take average of all types of food grains this is a fair support price.
** Currently China's average food grain production is 65 quintals / acre.
. While I ecstatic. But that is a tall order, no?With due respect,Theo_Fidel wrote: 35 quintals per acre is 7 ton per hectare. Only the central valley in California gets that kind of productivity. The inputs required to make it so means the Central valley rice costs 2 times that from the rest of the world. This after the enormous US subsidies.
Its a sort of indirect attempt at an "India Shining" campaign. The NDA's campaign was hollow and over the top and they paid the price for it. UPA wallahs are trying to take the Statistical route knowing fully well that five years down the line nobody is actually going to ask them why India's GDP is not $2.5 trillion like they promised. It also has a secondary objective of trying to attract investors (those who choose to believe the govt. rather than doing their own research and there aren't many of those) as you pointed out.SwamyG wrote:Why are so many people blowing our own trumpets? By people I mean individuals in GoI.
* Commerce & Industry Minister Sharma is on records saying "We will see India doubling its GDP in the next five years to USD 2.5 trillion"
* External Affairs Minister S. M. Krishna, says " ndia's present speed of growth would qualitatively transform its economy and society in 15 years."
* MMS says "We expect to achieve 8.5-per-cent growth rate in the year 2010-11 and I do hope we can achieve 9 percent in the year 2011-12"
* Pranab Mukherjee talks about India aiming for double-digit growth and India being in a better economic position.
Another personality also chimes in:
* Lord Meghnad Desai, Professor Emeritus, London School of Economics, on Wednesday said India is one of the most matured economies of the world.
My question:
Is this all to assuage foreign and domestic investors that India is doing good? I mean are they just doing their job of presenting our best image (which what they should do, no denying). I can understand us jingos crowing about it, but is the 'selling of India brand' a necessity and reflection of the 21st century?
This is the contradiction economist often try to address using the PPP statistics.SwamyG wrote:Isn't that like ignoring the 800lb gorilla in the room? Why include inflation and currency appreciation.
Nope. You referred to a statement about GDP in 2015, in USD, asking if it wasn't a tall order. I merely explained that there's nothing outlandish about the person's claim, extrapolating on those exactly same parameters. Over the last 5 year period, you'll probably get a nominal growth rate in USD slightly more than the extrapolated growth rate over the next five years. The US is pursuing greater export-led growth in the medium term, which means it will seek to have a weaker dollar, i.e. potential for a comparatively stronger Rupee going forward.SwamyG wrote:^^^
Isn't that like ignoring the 800lb gorilla in the room? Why include inflation and currency appreciation. If one equates GDP growth to a country's growth on the streets (i.e where people are positively impacted), then isn't it little deceiving? We might have doubled the GDP in numbers, but the actual growth (benefits to the people) might be less than the touted ones, no?
My questions' genesis is from the thought "Is there some way to measure how the aam family is faring year on year?"Are you implying that I like to call our country a poor and destitute? I did not. The size and adjectives are probably useful at some level. Cut to the chase what matters is aam family's improvement in life.Theo_Fidel wrote: So lets ask the counter question. Why depress the GDP of a country using currency depreciation.
What do you gain by saying we are a poor and destitute country.
Sure, that's all correct on paper. However, I never made any statement about per capita incomes, nor did I make a reference to inflation rates. I just mentioned that prevailing growth rates are roughly on track to deliver the economic output projected for 2015, assuming it is maintained at a similar level. All standard disclaimers about a statement about the future apply.SwamyG wrote:So if we say the GDP doubles, but one out of the three components is "real growth" the other two components being inflation and currency. If the inflation is very high, that is what I think you are referring, then it boils down to the fact that people's progress was not really double.
It can be March 2012Prem wrote: When you say 2.5 T in2015 , does this mean by March 2015 or end of 2015? The calender and fiscal year diffeence will constitute of " 9Months/ Quarter Trillion $ worth economic data which can have huge compounded impact on 2020 GNP figures.. if growth remains same.
. Let there be few or many Indian rich enought to buy both of these individually or collectivly by writting the personal check.I agree to an extent; if the World measures and talks in a language then it is natural for us to measure and talk in the same language. The danger is when countries get so obsessed by measuring whose size is bigger. Nominal, real, base year itiyadi all is fine and dandy we, as a society, hopefully keep the people's development in mind. Indicators are indicators; it gives us a sense of what is happening. Genuine Progress Indicator (GPI) sort of indicators are some of the new ones that are worth looking at by countries.If we're going to present numbers (on the economy) to the world why use oranges when everyone else uses apples?
Dear Swami JiSwamyG wrote:I agree to an extent; if the World measures and talks in a language then it is natural for us to measure and talk in the same language. The danger is when countries get so obsessed by measuring whose size is bigger. Nominal, real, base year itiyadi all is fine and dandy we, as a society, hopefully keep the people's development in mind. Indicators are indicators; it gives us a sense of what is happening. Genuine Progress Indicator (GPI) sort of indicators are some of the new ones that are worth looking at by countries.If we're going to present numbers (on the economy) to the world why use oranges when everyone else uses apples?
I can't help wondering if their fate was sealed when India missed the low-cost manufacturing bus that has lifted so many out of poverty in China, Taiwan, Malaysia etc..Theo_Fidel wrote: Yet there is undoubtedly a large 25%-30% chunk mostly rural & landless that is not directly benefiting. I meet this population often and to be honest I just don't know what the answer is for them. They are stuck in manual labor Cos they don't know better. This guarantees them grinding poverty. They have very few skills and Zero interest in acquiring them. I've personally tried. The men work often for a bottle of arrack in the evening and the women work to put some food in front of their kids. They are invariably in debt and have no means to pay it off. This is a 250 million person, over 30 year old chunk. Maybe more.
They are hard workers but can't seem to move up..
The only redeeming factor is their children are mostly in school and they are motivated to keep them there. May be different elsewhere.
If you know what the answer is please illuminate us.
Highway building on faster trackSix core infrastructure industries grew at 4.5 per cent in February against a meagre 1.9 per cent during the corresponding month last year, primarily due to increased output in electricity (7.3 per cent). The core sector had grown by a robust 9.5 per cent in January 2010.
The month on month deceleration in the growth rate is expected to moderate the overall industrial growth rate measured by the Index of Industrial Production (IIP), but is expected to continue at a healthy double digit level.
“Given these numbers, I think the IIP figures would come down and would be in the range of 10-11 per cent in the coming months,” said D K Joshi, principal economist of research and ratings firm Crisil Indian Limited.
The six infrastructure sectors — crude, petroleum refinery products, coal, electricity, cement and finished steel — that constitute 26.68 per cent in IIP, recorded a growth of 5.3 per cent in the period April-February 2009-10, as against 2.9 per cent in the same period last year.
A recent change that flew under the radar is that infrastructure companies are now allowed to issue their own bonds, something they had no recourse to do previously:Road Transport and Highways Minister Kamal Nath is a man in a hurry. Soon after he took over in June last year, he announced ambitious plans to build 20 km of road a day.
But by his own recent admission, he has been able to achieve 13 km a day – far short of the target, though much more than the 2 km a day achieved during the first five years of the United Progressive Alliance.
Nath was, however, quick to say that come June, the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) would be able to achieve the 20 km target.
The minister has many admirers but there are several who do not share his enthusiasm. To achieve the target, the minister has asked NHAI to prepare an annual work plan and award projects on that basis. NHAI has prepared two work plans for the first two years, under which it plans to award 11,928 km of projects till June this year and 11,721 km in the next financial year.
Even though the NHAI has already awarded 44 road projects totalling around 6,000 km, officials say they do not foresee the same kind of response for a major chunk of road projects to be awarded in the next financial year.
“In the second work plan, 8,959 km out of 11,721 km are two-lane highways that are not financially viable. These are unlikely to attract bids under the public-private partnership plan. This might delay all the progress we have achieved till now,” said an NHAI official, who did not want to be identified.
The earlier plan was to upgrade all national highways to four-lane. This was later revised to two-lane to make them financially viable. However, the toll rate on a two-lane road is 40 per cent lower than a four-lane one, still keeping them financially unviable.
To build 7,000 km of roads a year, there has to be work in progress on 18,000 km of highways.
But many feel that would be too cynical a view as the minister’s enthusiasm has helped rev up the system at least. “Whether 20 km is achievable or not is not the question. Here is a minister who aims at taking the road projects from 2 km a day to 20 km and doing his bit to make that happen and that is evident. Even if he achieves 15 km, that will be an achievement,” says Parvez Umrigar, managing director, Gammon Infrastructure.
Nath’s achievements include convincing the prime minister to form a committee to look into all the issues slowing the highway project, an exercise that gave NHAI more autonomy.
“To our surprise, we have received around 88 applications for a single project. This shows the interest road projects are generating and the credit goes to the minister,” says an NHAI official.
The finance minister called on Tuesday for a doubling of infrastructure spending to $1 trillion in the five years to 2016/17, and said private sector firms would be allowed to sell special bonds to help pay for it.
The enormous funding needs cannot be met by overstretched banks alone and will require new sources of financing, Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee told an industry conference.
Red tape and difficulties in acquiring land, along with an underdeveloped domestic bond market and wariness of overseas investors in committing to long-term, big-ticket projects have slowed infrastructure development.
The government has decided to allow private firms to issue infrastructure bonds, which will hopefully attract investments from big pension funds and other cash-rich firms, Mukherjee said. Issuance of these bonds, whose buyers can claim tax breaks, is currently limited to state entities.
"We have still not completely succeeded in exploiting the full potential of insurance and pension funds for deployment in infrastructure projects," Mukherjee said, without giving a timeframe for when the first such private bonds would be allowed to proceed.
"The availability of equity, both domestic and FDI (foreign direct investment), continue to remain an area of concern," he said.
The irony is that India has growth potential even greater than China's. It has the highest household savings rate in Asia at 32% of disposable income, with 65% of annual national savings coming from households compared to under 40% in China.
India also has natural economic growth in that its growth in recent years has come from domestic demand and employment, not net exports. Half of India's annual 7% real growth came from private consumption and less than 10% from external demand. By comparison, about two-thirds of China's average 10% real GDP growth in the 1990s came from exports and export-driven investment; only about 25% from private consumption. India is much less dependent on global demand for its prosperity.
And then there's employment. India's workforce has been growing at nearly 2% a year in the last decade, while China's grew at less than 1% and that growth in China's labor force will disappear in this next decade.
But all these long-term structural advantages contrast with appalling public finances and the risk of credit-fuelled inflation. Much firmer policy action is needed to reduce the size of government and its profligacy. If action is not taken soon, then the government's target for nominal GDP growth of 12%, made up of 9% real growth and 3% inflation, will look increasingly silly. At best, it will be met by a much higher proportion of inflation than real growth; at worst, growth will pared by the need to curb inflation.
By next crop did you actually mean previous crop? If yes, why do you think seeds from the previous crops are not good quality seeds? If the current crop does not produce good quality seeds, and they end up buying quality seeds from the suppliers and agencies, can't they use seeds from this crop in future? How often would they have to buy seeds?2. Use of quality seeds. At present many farmers use seeds from the paddy cultivated for the next crop. They don’t buy seeds from quality seed suppliers or agencies. This has a big effect on the yield.
