Consultants on Hire - for contract farming - I am beginning to understand that after the levelling out of the growth incline in the returns from software development and global outsourcing, the next big opportunity for Indian management consultants is going to be in, gently easing the entry of big players into the large scale corporate farming scenario of Indian agriculture. Management experts have already realized that information regaring Special Economic Zones (SEZ) is too freely available from the Indian government for them to be able to make really meaty consultancy killings.
Moreover, the Indian IT and Communications ministry have become a bit toooo transparent. And of course do not forget the RTI Act. But Agriculture and food, guys, this is one big Gulag Archipelago. Everything hidden, nobody really knows how decisions are made, and who makes the decisions and who endorses them from behind the scenes.
Guys, the next BIG thing is certainly going to be Contract Farming. I am willing to offer my services to all those bright Indian management grads who are looking to find their niche marketing or management consultancy opportunity in helping multi national food chains swoop in on the Indian contract farming scene. If there are any takers, keep watching this blog, this is certainly going to be the definitive blog for all the wannabe Indian contract farming consultants to get their NEXT GREAT ideas from. The politicians are still sleeping, in fact, the smarter ones are reading up all the persuasive arguments on trade liberalization in agriculture and agri food industry - and biding their time before those streams of mega consultancy dollars start arriving on their doorsteps or rather - back yards.
So guys, if any of you know the back doors of the Agriculture and Commerce ministry, you would be knowing that the "mantra" of dismantling FCI, state procurement et al is soon going to change into "Second Green Revolution" rhetoric.
Start reading up your Trade liberalization documents and making the right contacts in the Indian ministries. Big time consultancy is gonna be here soon.

Requirement Number One - The very existence of contract farming will require the continued existence of the Indian farmer. The big question is, in what numbers. Lets take a guess, - 650 million farmers managing the Indian farm fields is the current scenarion. This certainly calls for some classic management expertise. That is way too many of them. So the first thing required is to reduce the number of farmers to the extent that farming at least can begin to look like farming, rather than, squatting, by farmers on agricultural land. Maybe from 650 million farmers to 20 million farmers would be the ideal scenario, we may need to build some complex data and statistical models to prove this thesis, but then if I can find a sponsor I would be willing to have a go at this project. It would keep me fit as well as also buy me that piece of land in Europe grape vine country, I always keep dreaming of.
The big problem is that somehow genocide, war and communism are fast becoming unfashionable in the present day world where small bands of terrorists are giving sleepless nights to powers that be and to the airlines and media. Everybody seems to be focused on the global fight against terror and nobody has the time to work out simple calculations on the gigantic issue of as to how the Indian farming population can be reduced from 650 million to a manageable 20 million.
The other problem, is that India happens to be a vibrant democracy, in fact, the largest democracy on earth. So the solution has to at least seem, democratic, and achieved, so to say, by political process, if not necessarily by due consensus. I am sure some bright management kids from India's top B-Schools will shortly solve this problem.

Indian farming is in a mess. Indian farmers are in a greater mess. Indian farmers are running around like the Emperor without clothes, wishing for the clever master weavers to stitch for them, clothes of that fantastic material, that looks so fashionable as to be in fact invisible, but at the same time, is terribly expensive. Sustainable farming in India, is a thing of the past.
Indian government, agriculture and commerce ministries, corporate interests, IMF, World Bank, global trade blocs and local home grown Indian agricultural scientists, have taken over the right to dictate to the Indian farmer, what he should be doing to get out of the royal mess he finds himself in.
One of the brilliant ideas that are being thrown around is that of contract farming. Yes farming by contract, such a simple and benevolent idea thrown in by consultants of global repute.
The problem is that the Indian farmer is still too illiterate to understand clearly that contract farming is the next " hen that will lay golden eggs " for him. So this blog is meant to make him, the Indian farmer, understand that, contract farming, is really, just what the doctor ordered, for the ailing and terminally ill, 650 million Indian farmers.