January 29, 2008

US Grains Council sees export potential in India
 

The US Grains Council (USGC) announced on Friday (January 25, 2008) that it is engaged in assisting India's growing commercial poultry processing industry with their strategic consumer marketing efforts.

USGC said that Indian consumers purchase live poultry because supermarkets and grocery stores were uncommon, but things are changing. USGC director of international operations, Chris Corry said India has an increasing number of retail markets that are similar to US' grocery stores and that the change is due to a growing population.

USGC said India's successful economy depends largely on production agriculture, which accounts for at least 16 percent of the country's gross domestic product (GDP) of over US$1 trillion.

Nearly two-thirds of India's population is working in the agriculture sector and USGC is of the belief that its efforts on behalf of the commercial poultry industry will become increasingly important to Indian poultry farmers as demand for poultry meat and eggs is expected to increase as India's population continues to grow.

According to the US Department of State, India's current population is estimated at more than 1.1 billion and is growing at 1.3 percent a year. The poultry industry will grow substantially, thus needing more feed grains, primarily corn, as more consumers learns about the safety and efficiency of commercial poultry processing.

Corry said India's annual corn production of 600 million bushels is not enough to sustain its growing population, especially when meat and egg consumption is on the rise. He continued that India would eventually have to import feed ingredients from somewhere, which USGC is working hard to ensure it will be from US producers.

USGC consultant in India, Amit Sachdev agrees with Corry and said he is looking forward that the council's education efforts will pay off for US farmers while also feeding a growing nation and reducing poverty within India's agricultural sector.

Sachdev said they hopes that the work will lead to India buying US feed grains once more as US exports to India had ceased in 2002 due to a 15 percent import duty from all destinations.