India, land of fantastic wealth, abject poverty, populous cities and magnificent rivers – this much we know from documentaries.
In terms of agricultural economics, we know India is one of the BRIC countries – Brazil, Russia, India and China – that are developing into import and export powerhouses.
It is Canada’s biggest customer for pulse crops, particularly lentils and peas, and is a major importer of edible oils.
Canadian agricultural trade with India accounts for multi-millions annually and has great potential to grow. Free trade talks have been initiated between the two countries.
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Earlier this week,Western Producer reporter Mary MacArthur embarked on an agricultural tour of India to provide readers with news and photos from a Canadian perspective.
The tour is organized and escorted by Alberta agrologist Pramod Kumar, who is also an experienced guide and interpreter. He specializes in showing the agricultural aspects of India.
According to the itinerary, MacArthur is now in New Delhi, then goes to Chandrigarh and Ludhiana in the Punjab region of India’s north, where she will visit area farms. Then it’s on to other places with musical-sounding names, most of them chosen for their agricultural significance: Varanasi, Jabalpur, Agra, Jaipur, Goa, Kochi, Coimbatore, Ooty, Mysore, Bangalore, Hyderabad and Mumbai.
MacArthur, an experienced reporter and photographer, has arranged interviews with Canada’s agricultural trade commissioner and with the head of India’s pulse import association. She plans to tour Mumbai ports and pulse markets to collect information she will share with our readers.
We hope MacArthur will be able to file stories and photographs over coming weeks, if available technology permits, and she may also be writing a blog on www.producer.com.
Given that most telemarketer calls that come at suppertime seem to originate in India, the country obviously has a serviceable telecommunications infrastructure.
But India is a big and diverse country, about one-third the size of Canada, so that might be a bit like saying communications access in Calgary is as good as it is in Rankin Inlet.
MacArthur is resourceful, so she will doubtless find a way. We hope you will watch these pages and producer.com to see what she finds and to learn more about Indian agriculture and its relationship to producers here on the Prairies.
