Quantum jump in per capita consumption of milk, meat and eggs

Quantum jump in per capita consumption of milk, meat and eggs
Dr.T.P.Sethumadhavan
Increasing per capita consumption of milk increases the domestic demand of milk. As domestic consumption of milk increases, as a result of wide demand supply gap scarcity arises. Even though consumption of food grains has decreased during the year 2007-2008, animal protein sources like milk, meat and eggs shows a positive trend. This emphasizes the need for increasing domestic production to meet the ever-increasing need for animal protein sources. As India is growing richer, Indians are growing hungrier. Annual per capita cereal and pulses availability has declined from 457 gm and 40.16 gm respectively in 1995 and to 391 gm and 31.5 gm respectively in 2005.

The per capita daily cereal availability is lower than 393.1 gm of cereal and almost 47 percent of the 67.2 gm of pulses available in 1960 to the Indian population. But Indians are eating more meat and eggs. Per capita egg consumption is expected to close at 43 eggs in 2007-08 while broiler meat at 2 kg. It is expected to reach 50 eggs per year and 2.3 kg per year of broiler meat by 2010. Per capita milk consumption in 2007-08 is about 238 gm/day. It is expected to reach 262 gm/day by 2010. Inorder to increase more quantity of animal protein sources to meet the increasing needs of the population; sufficient quantity of grains like maize will be required at a reasonable price. Moreover rate of agricultural growth fell from 5 percent in the mid 1980s to less than 2 percent in the last 5 years. India is facing a demand- supply mismatch in the case of food grains despite having produced a good quantity of wheat and rice last year.

Bitech markets in Asia

GM crops in India

Dr.T.P.Sethumadhavan

Genetically modified technology has always attracted skepticism, resistance and controversy, yet its use continues to grow in many parts of the world. Says US Grains council. Despite pest and pricing worries, many Asian countries have welcomed biotech crops. Be it farmers in India, China, Vietnam or Philippines, it is all over Asia and the Indian subcontinent that farmers are happy with the use of new products on offer in the agriculture marketplace. Public sector institutions presently carry out majority of developments in crop biotechnology. According to the International Service for the Acqisition of agri-biotech applications, the total area of approved GM crops reached 102 million hectares in 2006. Of the 9 million hectares in India about 38 percent was on Bt Cotton in 2006 and the area coverage is expected to increase to 75 percent by 2010. While Governments and environmental groups argue over the safety and morality of GM crops, many farmers in Asia are quietly working with scientists to overcome minor problems they are experiencing with this technology. In India agriculture biotechnology space has grown in the past one decade and has witnessed projects in large number of private and public sector. The investment has also shifted to some extent purely application oriented research to a mix of basic and applied research. Several biotech companies catering specialized research services to seed companies lack in house research facilities, which creates opportunities in agri biotechnology.
India had realized several years back that to increase food, feed and fiber production from the current level, use of biotechnology is imperative. Several institutions under Indian council of Agricultural Research and Council for Scientific and Industrial Research under department of Biotechnology, Government of India are actively applying biotechnological tools to enhance productivity and quality of agricultural crops. Agricultural universities, traditional universities and other R&D institutions are funded by DBT through external grants to support research on transgenic crops. Bio-safety of Biotech crops is one of the growing areas of research in the Biotech sector.