 Well, good morning everybody and I am, my name is Raj Shah and I'm the Administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development. I'm thrilled to be able to be here with this morning's plenary panel and with the focus on the topic on food security and agriculture in particular. I'm also grateful to everyone for being here early in the morning and for our outstanding panelists who will share their thoughts with us on opportunities to improve food security in India and to do so through accelerating commercial investment in agriculture in a manner that supports the hundreds of millions of people who continue to rely on small farming comes for their livelihoods and for their family social welfare. We are having this discussion at a unique time in India's development and the history. We've seen in the recent election a major focus by all political leaders and certainly the Prime Minister on speaking to the aspirations of rural economy and people in rural communities. We have seen in just the last two to three years a significant reduction in head count poverty in rural India driven by improvements in agriculture and access to jobs. But we also see a persistent reality that more than 400 million people despite extraordinary rates of growth over a decade continue to live in poverty and continue to be dependent on agriculture for their own livelihoods. At the same time we note that this forum brings together India's most prominent businesses, commercial sector leaders, investors and policymakers and does so at a time when there appears to be tremendous promise for investment in India, for commercial partnerships with partners around the world and for improvements in every step of the agricultural value chain from retail to post harvest processing and production back through to agricultural inputs and technology. We have an extraordinary panel this morning to talk about how to take advantage of the opportunity that now exists to drive effective investment in the agriculture sector in India in a way that protects commercial capital and achieves extraordinary social outcomes. And I'm going to start actually by first asking the Prime Minister of Cote d'Ivoire of course not from India to open us off because Prime Minister Daniel Kublin Duncan has been an extraordinary leader for agriculture and has brought together the public sector, the private sector, policymakers and investors in Cote d'Ivoire in a manner that I think has surprised a lot of your colleagues and peers with the pace with which you've put in place, Mr. Prime Minister, some very real policy reforms and how quickly those policy reforms have encouraged real commercial investment from a range of partners including some you were just describing such as Dreyfus. So I'm eager to hear your thoughts on your own experience in modernizing and commercializing agriculture, attracting investment, making policy reforms, what you've learned from that and what you think is instructive here in India. Well, thank you, Shah. I would like to say that the vision of President Alassardo Watra, the President of the Republic of Cote d'Ivoire, is to turn Cote d'Ivoire into an emerging market by 2020. To do so we have to have a very rapid growth and robust growth and inclusive growth. But to do so we need to have the agriculture must be the center for the increase in GDP. And during the past three years we have about 9% increase in GDP in Cote d'Ivoire. But we need to have big reforms. Maybe you know that among the 10 best reformers in the world, Cote d'Ivoire ranked fourth during the two past years. And well, agriculture must be the basis. It was the basis and should be the basis of the development of Cote d'Ivoire. Its contribution to GDP is about 30%. And the reforms is to give – if I take an example the case of CoCo for instance. I mentioned it yesterday, 60% of the international price go to the farmers. That's kind of rule. So we have witnessed some progress in not only the increase of production, but also the improvement in quality as far as the sector are concerned. So that's one of the main aspects. We want to improve the earnings of the farmers. And to do so we have to improve the yields in the agriculture sector and also to make mechanization, to have more tractors, more fertilizer to be used, more dams to be used. So the government have nothing else for that. We have three programs covering the period 2012 to 2016. And it's a amount of four billion US dollars program. 60% has to be financed by the private sector and 40% by the government. So we have some commitment with the private sector, international sector. You mentioned breakfast, but there are some other companies, European companies, Asian companies, and we have seven of them participating to the program. We are ahead in the program and we give them a land, a lease for them. And they have to work with the farmers. Let's say for instance we get one tenth of the land to them. That will be the kind of specific program and train the farmers. And they buy the crops from the farmers and to sell it. So they give the expertise to the farmers. We have done it for instance for the rice, the food stuff. We have done also for vegetables, and we are also trying to do it for some of the agricultural export products, like cuckoo of course, but also rebuke plantations and so on. So agriculture is changing, really changing. We have more inclusive groups in our country. And driving a 9% growth rate, which is an extraordinary performance. I would just highlight Cote d'Ivoire has been really a star performer in a program President Obama has been a part of called the New Alliance for Food Security, where pending your making policy reforms, the forum and the United States and others seek to bring more private investment to the sector. And it appears to be working. And that I think is a good opportunity for you Mr. Suresh Prabhu, the G20 Sherpa of India and of course the chair of the Council of Energy, Environment and Water to speak to your vision of the opportunity here in India right now. If you were to say there are two or three very important policy reforms that you and the government are committed to implementing, and that would lead to more commercial investment and improved performance in the agriculture sector, what would those two or three reforms be, and how difficult is it to implement those reforms all the way through the system? One obviously is a big challenge that India is facing because of the skewed relationship between number of people who are employed or dependent on agriculture and its contribution to GDP, which is very, very small as compared to the rest of the GDP. It's falling constantly. It's also falling because the rest of GDP is rising a little faster than the rest. So services are growing faster, but agriculture is obviously not keeping pace with that. The other challenge is that there are a large number of people who are dependent on agriculture are not there because they want to be in agriculture. In fact we have a national sample survey which says that almost two thirds or maybe even half of the people would not like to continue in agriculture. So they are really looking out for opportunities to do something outside of the farm, but they are not getting that opportunity. So that's the second challenge. The third challenge obviously is that productivity is a big challenge for India because we need to produce farm over with a limited land, and that land is under constant pressure because we cannot keep the, because only 2.2% of the land of the world is with India. So we cannot keep the land only for agriculture because there are so many competing demands and the farmer would obviously feel that this is my asset. Let me decide how I should dispose it off. If I want to put any, I want to monetize it. I want to get money out of it. Why should not I? So that's another challenge. How do you make it? So we must defer work on many areas. One is getting technology. We have no choice but to get a real technology to make sure that we produce more from the existing land. Secondly, we must also find out how do people are able to migrate from agriculture to non-agriculture employment. That's a very important issue. Therefore, the skilled development program that we have, a massive one, a very ambitious one, we should try to integrate that with agriculture. How do you ensure that people on farm will be able to get something out, maybe in the near area? So what happens is two things will happen. Immediately per capita productivity on farm will improve because if half of the people go away from farming, that's what will obviously happen. But because they go out, they will also supplement the family income and that would also help in other areas. That's a farmer's nutritional security. Normally farmers provide food to others. We never bother about his own nutritional security. So that would also be taken care of. And I think thirdly, we really need to make large investments into infrastructure related to farms. So if something was started, we have already constructed a lot of rural roads, which will definitely bring in a lot of changes into that. But we really need to invest into infrastructure related to agriculture. We always say that normally the government's claim would be that we are given so much of more loans to farmers. I think that's not a challenge because farmer is not able to service the loan because his incomes are falling and real incomes are falling. And therefore the challenge is how do you actually provide that infrastructure? So rather than making investment into giving more loans, rather make investments into creating that infrastructure related to farming. And then of course the last challenge that we have is a legal one in terms of ensuring that we create one common market for agriculture within the country. That something could happen. We have some restrictive practices on that in terms of people not able to sell outside of certain geographical areas. Another thing is a big challenge is in terms of how do you ensure that quality and the linkages that really happen. So if you can have more food processing, obviously the farmer will get better price because there will be the pull for the demand for the farm products. And therefore I think that again is something we really need to ensure. So there are large number of issues. The government is working and in fact I was very impressed with the Prime Minister's approach towards it and 8-9 percent growth. I'll just tell you something interesting. We have 29 states now. We created one more recently. Out of that some of the states have a double digit growth rate on agriculture. So this is something very interesting that maybe as a country we are still not growing as much as we would like but there are some states like Madhya Pradesh which is the centre of India has grown 10 percent plus and that means that some states and Gujarat, the home state of our present Prime Minister was going a double digit for a pretty long time for almost a decade. So this is something which is possible if you focus specifically on local situation, come out with even I would say the agro-climatic condition. We should really have macro agro-climatic condition to decide the coping pattern. We must integrate a whole of this strategy with the type of soil we have got, type of water management we need and if you can integrate all this with technology. So technology is not just technology of technology technology but technology in terms of even food the farming practices would also substantially make a change. Well you know that's a pretty broad agenda and so you have a busy plate. I do wonder in a full plate, I do wonder whether you think if you could speak to the role of retail the retail sector, multi-brand, foreign investment the kinds of things that can modernize the retail sector so that you can create the backward linkages into specific agricultural value chains. Do you see progress being made there and how important is that to unlocking value and creating incentives for improved commercialization, in particular post-harvest processing? Absolutely right. In fact, that's a key area and we have a very separate specialized ministry to dealing with that food processing ministry. But I think we have completely opened up for foreign investment that part of the chain. So if somebody wants to make a cold chain it is definitely possible to make investments into that. If somebody wants to process food in different forms this is definitely possible with foreign investment and in fact the warehousing, that's another critical area because now the challenge is we produce so much that we don't know where to store it and we lose quite a bit of it because we don't have proper warehousing facilities and sometimes it also suspect that amount of quantity we store because we don't have a proper information system about when it was stored, what is its quality today. So a lot of best practices could be getting to that by using not such a sophisticated technology, not a rocket science technology but something which could be done and that is all definitely possible in terms of today's law, today's policy where investment could be made in that segment which will be so more critical for the farmer to get a better price and that's the best incentive a farmer could have is to get a better price and therefore that's how we'll produce more. Well that's an excellent transition because when we speak about farmers price, the farm gate price we know is highly related to farmers incomes which is deeply deeply connected to social performance for rural households and rural poverty reduction and we're honored on this panel to have Chavi Rajawat, a leader really in fighting poverty using innovation and markets here in India. You're the elected head of the village council of Sarpanch and I wonder if you could share with us your work in creating this model village and your view of how important are farm gate prices to creating the sustained economic growth that both helps people move out of the agricultural sector and simultaneously improves productivity and the quality of agricultural value chains. Sure but first I'd like to say the model village that still work in progress hope to get there soon enough but I think agriculture space in India needs a lot more focus than is being given and I don't think that's, we're getting enough of it and as Mr Prabhu pointed out that most of the people want to move out of agriculture but that's not because they don't want to work in that sphere it's just because they don't think it is a viable location you know because they don't have fair prices, they don't have warehousing facilities usually the government from what I've noticed so far, please correct me if I'm wrong normally when the prices are hiked by the government the prices are set it's usually four to five months post harvest time now because the village doesn't have space to stock up the produce he has no choice but to sell it off at a cheaper price to the middleman and who stocks it up and takes benefit of the price hike so what do these people do because it is still a very label intensive vocation I personally feel when you speak of policy reforms I wish somebody would think about it and bring in subjects such as agriculture, animal husbandry and horticulture into high schools now I wish I had learned something like that I would love to work in this space but that is something we don't have and I think we are able to bring that in in schools we will not only just ensure that the next generation starts to respect this vocation which currently is not happening but also bring in the technical know-how and unless until we don't find technology coming to the space there is no way that we are really going to progress and see that growth that this field requires and yes we do need to provide opportunities which again in the rural sector do not exist not just for farmers but even other people as Mr. Preble pointed out we have to provide skill development facilities and while we do that it's also important to I think my question which I would like to pose here is more often than not the government thinks that industrialization is the only way forward towards growth but is that the only way do we industrialize green belts should we even be doing that why not focus on barren areas which are not non-cultivable why are we not doing enough of that so those are the questions I would like to throw out here because the solution is out there I don't know what it is but how do we work towards it to ensure that we do not lose out on the current asset that we have more than 70% population is dependent on agrarian economy so how do we ensure that it is made a viable profession for them well I'm glad you're making that point because we know that a dollar invested in agricultural research here in India is likely to create 23 dollars of economic value and that agricultural GDP growth is three to six times more likely to reduce poverty than industrialized GDP growth and even then and not just in India but in every country there's a strong sense that agriculture doesn't get the policy prioritization and public investment required to really take advantage of that reality and your work has really highlighted that so thank you next I want to go to J.Dev Shroff of UPL you're the CEO of a major agricultural company here in India but you're working in 19 countries in Africa and elsewhere around the world give us your sense of what's the outlook for agricultural investment here in India first and then what have you learned from really a fairly adventurous perspective in terms of your willingness to make investments in next tier emerging markets in Africa and elsewhere and what are the lessons learned there for how to be successful making agricultural investments really in some markets when many other firms in the sector will hold back I think India has come a long way in agriculture and we have of course the biggest challenge is keeping food the government has a huge challenge keep food prices low to control inflation make sure farmers are profitable there is nothing more inspiring for a small farmer than to have free cash flow at the end of the year we need to the more money they make the more excited they get and the more they invest and more members of the family get involved and as some of my panelists were saying that's what encourages them to stay there and I have seen in a number of examples when you are able to offer farmers technology to increase yields the adoption rate of hybrid crops the adoption rate of various technologies where the farmers able to see the improvement in productivity you get a lot of excitement from our industry I can speak is that we have thousands of farmer meetings every day and farmers attend those meetings and the attention they pay during those little 100 people 20 people meetings is incredible so the ability of Indian agriculture to double productivity is definitely there I think we need to understand what motivates the farmers to really focus and improve productivity and we have started working in the northeast part of India with hybrid rice and the adoption rate is phenomenal yesterday we were talking to the Secretary of Agriculture and he says we need to spend more time there we need to have similarly other hybrid crops and the yields doubled even as far as climate change is concerned we need to make sure that the farmers are growing the right crop the most important thing for India is that the small farmer is highly susceptible to crop prices he's highly susceptible to drought to floods for him to recover from a bad year you can always assume once in four years you will have some kind of calamity either prices won't be good or you have a drought or you have a flood or some other pest disease issue which really reduces his output drastically and if we are able to sustain that he is a bankable customer and if he is a bankable customer everybody whether it's a tractor company or whether it's a straight away lending or the ability of the input suppliers to invest in the farmer increases proportionately so we have seen that wherever the farmers are able to generate any kind of free cash flow sustainably the ability of him and that whole region and as an example it really changes it drastically so we have seen farmers in you know around major cities if you look at the grape farmers in Nasik area in Maharashtra they are rich I mean their income per acre is tremendous so I think how do we make more areas of India more sustainable as far as our business model is concerned we did some pilot runs in Africa under various particularly under the Grow Africa project which is quite phenomenal what really excited us is that when we saw that the African Union got together and said 10% of GDP is going to be invested in agriculture you know if the governments are interested it's easier for us to operate in our previous attempts to get into Africa it was very difficult because all the governments had different ideas the bureaucrats had different ideas and when we tried to make any kind of initiative it took a very very long time still it takes a long time in some countries but with this whole drive with bringing everybody on the table and having a common goal of really investing a lot of money and making sure productivity you know the governments are focused on improving agriculture productivity and they are really interested in making sure that you know they are sort of becoming sustainable in agriculture we found some success there and of course it is a long process but you know for example our experiments in South Sudan we had 400% yield improvement you know they had no fertilizer we just gave them better seeds and they had a 400% improvement in sorghum yield it's a primary food crop and we have met all the government people and we agreed to set up a training school for farmers you know the country has been in some kind of war or the other for a long time and the government was I mean the vice president of the country said you know I'm going to be the first student in the school because they are so food insecure that they all want to have a little farm and they want to farm so it's not going to make too much money for the period but it's exciting to be able to make a difference Well thank you and on the other end of the spectrum you spoke yesterday about Maharashtra where this model of government leadership and reform in a manner that brings private companies in on focused value chains can deliver progress do you want to just quickly share with our gathered audience here today your impression of that experiment and that is sort of the Indian version of grow Africa or grow Asia and potentially has more to be replicated in other states throughout the country I think you know the common goal of the Indian government and the Indian industry is really to improve agriculture productivity and in Maharashtra through the VEF we were able to organize new vision for agriculture project which basically uses the government policies the government has a scheme in which PPP so public-private partnership can avail of a lot of the government money to improve agriculture productivity and what we started off with eight companies and I think 50,000 farmers three years ago today it's 30 companies and half a million farmers and it's been a tremendous success it's been particularly driven through you know nobody had we all had a very skeptical about the whole thing working and it's not a single industry so we have banks involved we have you know input companies we have output companies and the whole model is around how does the government has got a very selfish interest how do I increase the value added for the farmers so they are making sure that the output goes directly to the food companies you know that we are working at the grass root in really focusing on helping the farmer improve his quality and his output and also focus on what the industry needs so if they need a certain kind of quality of food so how do the input companies the seed companies the chemical companies the fertilizer how do we really do that and it's been a tremendous success the whole idea is now a discussion yesterday last evening was how do we involve more states in this and it's very exciting I think we need to make sure that you know we can get 5 million farmers involved in Marastra over the next three to four years and I think you know with the interest of the government I think we will be able to do that that's a great example and it is a great manifestation and demonstration of the basic point of the WEF's new vision for agriculture initiative which is that different sectors and different companies public and private need to come together to really transform agricultural value chains and Nestle of course has been doing building those partnerships and transforming value chains creating a lot of value especially in high value areas like dairy and others and I wonder if Etienne Benet you could describe your view of value chains how you bring together the different types of partners to be successful the role of a major company like Nestle in making a 10 or 15 year commitment to a value chain and importantly when you hear Suresh or you hear Prime Minister Duncan do you feel there are some markets and some leaders that give you enough confidence where you're saying okay I'm now ready to double down investments in these states or these countries because I've heard the following things from leaders what are those following things you need to hear to make that doubling down decision. Thank you maybe I say a few words of introduction that for Nestle actually our philosophy in doing business is what we call creating shared value so we create value as a whole we have the stakeholders and we share this value that is created with the rural community and with the communities we are working with so it has been a long life commitment to the rural world actually the three main axis of this creating shared value for Nestle it's water, nutrition and rural development so very very early on more than 100 almost 150 years ago we have been committed to develop the communities and the rural communities with whom we're working and we have continued to do so so it's a very long term thinking process we are not just buying material we are creating links with the communities and we are trying to see the whole aspect of the value chain together so we bring the different partners we talk with all the actors and specifically we engage in developing the rural communities for us it's extremely important to have sustainable procurement of agri-products to have sustainable procurement of nutritious products and therefore it's vital for us to make sure actually to come back to some points that have been made that people want to work in agriculture so it's extremely important for us that people like to work in agriculture, enjoy working in agriculture and make money working in agriculture so I'm not sure if others have been doing that that's not the point but we have never seen agriculture as people to be pressurized and to break the backbone just to make more profit we have always shared this value in order to make sure that those communities were progressing socially and economically and financially so very very early on we have developed programs of micro financing, of technical assistance of understanding better cultural practices, usage of water better seedlings, better plantlets we have provided ourselves improved plantlets if I take the case of Côte d'Ivoire for example we have been extremely involved in the cocoa plant and in the coffee plant in order to provide the Ivorian farmers and cooperatives with new plantlets with disease resistant and high yield cocoa plants for example and in many many cases actually in all the cases after a certain time and this takes time it's a commitment on the long term it could increase the yield and productivity very very substantially I mean in the range of what you are saying for example we have been working in India for well we are present in India for more than 100 years and industrially for 50 years our first factory was built in Mogha in 1961 we started with few farmers and few kilo of mills that were procured and today we work with 100,000 farmers in Punjab in Rajasthan in Ghana and we have developed cooling centers we have developed these technical assistance we work closely with the communities and today the kind of ratio that we can see is in the areas where we have provided these assistance they yield the productivity per course actually four or five times more than where we are not. Well let me ask you are you more likely or less likely today to make substantial additional investments in value chains in India. Yeah absolutely we are you're more likely yeah absolutely we are definitely committed and why are there any are there specific commitments the government making or a level of confidence you have in market growth what is driving your willingness to make those additional investments well I would say first of all is the philosophy of the company we're in a country for more than 100 years we want to be there in another 100 years and more so definitely we want to invest in the places where we are in Africa in Brazil or in Latin America we are present all over the world so definitely in India we want to continue investing but also because of the potential for sure there is a huge potential that's absolutely clear and just to on one point regarding the what is triggering the investment or what are the triggers of the government or the authorities in general can give us actually we had a very interesting discussion yesterday morning on Maharashtra where there is this kind of combined effort what you are talking about and then I went to the person and said please I want to know more and I want to go there and see how we can be involved we are not involved today in Maharashtra because we don't have production side there so we have just a bit of milk collection in one area but of course there are many things we can do we can procure cereals we can so a big important I would say commitment we make also is the supplier development and local development so we want to use locally produced raw materials today we are still importing some materials we want to produce them locally so for that we need to work with rural communities and we need to work also with a good supply chain I would say and add value locally as well yeah good Ajay Virjakar you are the chairman of Barath Krishak Samaj a farmers forum that represents at least 100,000 farmers but really many many more in the policy advocacy work that you do you were sharing with me earlier that the United States has played some role in helping to create that institution and President Eisenhower spoke once at one of your sessions and I think that's instructive because during President Obama's first visit here actually one of my predecessors coined the term green revolution based on the work in this region on agricultural transformation in the 80s and late 70s and 80s and when President Obama was here for his state visit to India in 2010 he launched the partnership for an evergreen revolution and just yesterday I had a chance to hear about some of the scientists that are working to both improve pigeon pee and then expand access to that all over the world based on harnessing Indian innovation and talent but as you think about the history of the agriculture sector here and as you hear the vision of coupling real policy reforms with a renewed commitment to the agriculture sector with the interest of private companies that will make bigger investments are you optimistic about the future of policy governance and investment in the agriculture sector and do you believe in the next few years you'll see significant improvements in terms of farmers' yields and incomes and livelihoods after many years we are cautiously optimistic now and we hope with people like Mr. Suresh Prabhu heading policy we will be very optimistic and we will get there but you know in this session I had some other things to talk about and I was asked to speak on some other things but I'll because we focus as an organization on policy I'll just give a perspective on policy in India. Muhammad bin Tublak was a ruler 600 years ago around 1350 AD he formed the first ministry of agriculture and I'll just quote what he decreed he decreed wherever wheat is grown barley should be grown wherever barley is grown sugarcane should be grown today the ministry of agriculture calls its diversification we still add it after 600 years and that's the problem we're solving the same problems why this happens is very simple that farmers are not involved in the decision making in the policy making see NGOs and people and agriculture economists they're very articulate they're trained to be articulate they express themselves very well farmers know how to farm but they don't know how to express themselves and that disconnect leads to a policy which is not favorable to the farming communities so these needs needs to be stemmed increasingly agriculture production and GDP growth means is perceived to mean prosperity for small farmers and this is very far from the truth and I would go on to say that increasing agriculture productivity is as different from farmer profitability and farmer prosperity as agriculture economists are from farmers themselves but having said that it might sound pessimistic but we're really optimistic now as far as small farmers are concerned I think we need to get down to the grassroots we need to focus on horticulture because it creates five times the number of jobs that any other investment in this country will create we need to get down to animal husbandry because the yields of animals needs to go up so these are the small things that are required we don't need large investments in a small number of projects we say this regularly we need a large number of investments in lots of small projects we don't need large projects we need small projects and that goes for water that goes for irrigation that goes for drip irrigation making tanks and things like that recharging the groundwater so those are the kinds of things we need and one of the biggest problems that we have is risk mitigation for small farmers and of course other things have already been mentioned rather than not go into those but climate change is happening and people who don't believe in climate change is happening and they're all over they're in the US they're in India they're everywhere they oppose adoption of technology and without adopting new technologies we will not be able to cross the hill that's before us well I doubt that 600 years ago they were talking about digital farm extension and mobile phones to communicate with producers about what diseases they were dealing with but it is striking that 600 years ago they were talking about diversification on farm and in those production systems I'd like to ask each panelist or anyone who'd like to share what is one specific request you would make first of we'll start with Prime Minister Modi and the government in terms of if there's one area of focus for improving Indian agriculture and improving really the food and nutrition sector broadly because we know that it's not just about yield improvements you also have 45% of children either stunted or malnourished what would that one intervention be and I'll ask for just very very brief comments and then come to another question so maybe Javi we start with you sure I'd say and I think some of the speakers have already said this it is very important to first do a need analysis I don't think the government does that we need to do that we need to ensure that the farmers are made the key stakeholders and I would disagree with Ajay when he says that they're not articulate I don't believe so the problem is who is listening can we have some way of ensuring that their voice is heard and then come out with solutions which meets with their requirements what can we possibly do to ensure that the farmers interests are protected because currently they clearly are not and again as Mr. Prabhu pointed out when you speak of infrastructure development that's not just stick to just roads but there's a lot more than that there's warehousing can we provide them processing units to ensure that they are able to produce more than what they already are so that they can receive better prices and also nobody really spoke much about the water security and I'm going to take the example of my district which isn't Rajasthan we have for water scarcity our area is clearly the agriculture is dependent on rainfall so it's a rain fed sector and in spite of knowing all that in spite of knowing that for 13 long years we had not witnessed good rains and in spite of that the policy cap was such wherein the only dam that our district had the water was being pumped out to big cities which can afford to create their own water harvesting structures now you're depriving the already deprived now what kind of vision to our leaders really have so I think that is something that I would wish the current government would look into. So really vesting farmers as stakeholders in that policy process which takes me to Prime Minister Duncan what would your one point of advice be to your colleagues here maybe before giving some advice what I would like to stress is that for instance when I mentioned the five years program of four billion years dollar the creation of jobs is 2,400,000 jobs within five years modern jobs that's fantastic so we have some change in the area of the farmers the earnings have increased for example of rice production they had before $200 per hectare now they have $1000 per hectare multiplied by five that's a big change and another thing to stress is the part play by women they have more earnings they have more land because they have the property of the land now it's different for the past and when women have money they take care of the family that's not generally the case of men so that's a big change another example we have noticed is that the use of mobile phone have increased while in the mid 90s we have only $250,000 mobile phone in Cote d'Ivoire now we have 20 million mobile phone what's the total population? 24 that's a big change and the change came in the rural sector mainly so there is really a revolution a green revolution is on the way on the Cote d'Ivoire and I would like to have some companies like UPL to be part of the revolution in Cote d'Ivoire that's what I would like to do to a more private sector not only national but international be part of the progress in Cote d'Ivoire it's not in the industry it's not in the services that they can have money but even in agriculture there is possible to win money for the private sector and we are working with the Indian companies and I think that's a good feature for the cooperation just an example in 2005 the trade between India and Cote d'Ivoire was only $18 million now it's $700 it was $18 million now it's $762 million so well there's a lot a long way to go and you can improve things quickly so given that successful experience you have a new government here a lot of energy in the room investors from all over the world I think looking at India again as a growth market where capital can be protected what would you are I'm going to push you on this or what would your words of advice be for the government to attract that capital and to achieve that kind of pretty transformational result of five times increase in farmers earnings with a focus on women in particular we met already the Indian exhibit yesterday and we also met the foreign affairs already and we want to double or triple the cooperation between India and Cote d'Ivoire so we are on the way to do that and we want to have more the private sector both national and international so I think there is a big challenge ahead and we can do it I will finish by saying that while I have a joke with them you know that India is the world's largest producer of cashew nut with about 800,000 tons Cote d'Ivoire produced 560,000 and I have a kind of a joke saying that within three or four years will be the world's largest producer of cashew nut to reach 1,000,000 tons but we want to have a win game with them and we want to process more of it locally because we process only 7.5% locally and we want to reach at least 60% by 2020 so we have a big way to go with them So lots of areas for cooperation but also a challenge there if you are going to achieve that number one spot Suresh I would like to come to you and say you have heard now from companies in the corporate sector and you are pursuing an aggressive reform yesterday you spoke about the role of water resource management in the context of Indian agriculture especially in the context of climate change a more responsible commercial agricultural sector evolve in India that is sensitive to climate realities that is efficient and oriented around water use efficiency and what more do you want to see from private sector partners as part of this new vision for agriculture where the governments and companies work together with farmers and including farmers as major stakeholders to improve outcomes in the sector If you recall in 60s the first green revolution took place and of course with a great cooperation of US Secretary Freeman in a way freed the Indian agriculture from the shackles that we were tied up to So I think if you talk about the new revolution that we really need to introduce into the agriculture and what is that we need to do and listening to some of the very interesting comments I think we talk about just we talked about value chain we talk about supply chain we talk about coal chain I think now we really need to develop a knowledge chain between various stakeholders reaching the farms and also the listening chain the same chain could listen to the farmers concerns reaching out to the other stakeholders maybe the agriculture universities research organizations private sector and others I think that type of a chain actually in a way brought about the first green revolution there was a lot of extension work which was carried out during that particular period so somehow we lost touch with that so I think now we really need to create that so now we have far more stakeholders in agriculture than what we had in 60s there was nothing worthwhile private sector operating in agriculture as much as we have today we don't have a knowledge base global institutions which could reach out to the Indian farmers very easily than what we could do in 40 years ago so I think this is a great opportunity now so I think therefore I think I agree with you that somehow this is always a problem with governments globally that they normally don't listen they want others to listen to them so I think this is one thing we really need to change that governments must be able to listen more to the people I think US are going to tell the same thing to the congressmen and senators today I think our government is very acutely aware of the need to listen to voters today and I think that could be far more important and Rajesh if you permit me I need to go for a meeting so she just let me go but I will be very happy to carry with me some interesting messages and I'm sure we'll be able to listen we'll listen but we'll be able to act on that what we'll listen absolutely well thank you for participating and I understand you're certainly excused to go we have a few minutes left and I'd like to come to JDEV next and just ask based on Suresh's comments if you're creating a knowledge based agriculture system today the drivers of extension of learning and of connection to farmers are as much your company Nestle companies that are really building these integrated supply chains as they are the traditional public sector extension workers that Suresh just spoke about what are you doing I know you're doing farming schools and other things what are you doing to really contribute to sharing knowledge and technology with the farmers you work with but also more broadly with the rest of the sector so you know the the challenge the industry is facing and there are solutions you know today there is so much technology with the satellite imaging precision agriculture a lot of the technology is already available Brazilian farmers use it the US farmers use it you know a lot of things can be really mass produced at a much lower cost we need to be able to use these technologies for small farmers so how do we address nutrient deficiencies you know you for using spatial technologies how do we really be able to give farmers advice when they want it because traditionally and it's all possible today in fact a lot of the companies are doing that we all have highly qualified people at the end of a phone farmers can call them phone calls are much more affordable we can have people on the ground we have small weather stations which give you the humidity when the farmers can plant their seed when is he likely we have predictive models of when is he likely to get some kind of disease you know and all that is under development and I think in the next few years you will be able to predict much better what the farmer can do because once he's had a pest attack or a disease attack or if he plants his seed too early he has to replant if he has an attack that the cost of controlling a disease is far higher than preventing it you know and his cost of cultivation goes up also allowing companies output companies output acquirers like Nestle where is the right place to acquire because where is the farmer harvesting so he can they can focus all that all that information is getting accumulated we are in the process primarily because today telecommunication is very affordable you know we are so excited that we're going to have 4G we can really download you know the farmers can really take a picture because a lot of it is you know when a farmer has a problem he's desperate because that 2 acres or 5 acres of land is his all his wealth all his free cash is invested in that for that year and when he has a problem he's desperate the other aspect is you know cost of labor cost of labor is going up so you know we are working very closely on different models that how why does the farmer have to buy the tractors why does he have to can he can we have a different model then Brazilian model or American weather farmer has huge tractors so how we can we have a pool in each village where he can you know we can have a model by which he can lease the equipment or contract it out and you know you can spray a field in half an hour instead of 5 laborers working for you know 5 days to do something so lots of innovation going on I think you will see in the next 3 or 4 years a lot of changes just the other thing I think the biggest challenge for the government and you mentioned the message to the government is I think food price inflation is a big concern of the finance ministry finance ministry is a very powerful ministry they can influence a lot of things because you know they control everybody's budget the most important thing contrary to that is making sure that in this whole drive to control food price inflation you don't sacrifice the farmers because if you keep trying to control you need to make sure that the farmers are also making free cash coming back to the point of making embankable farmers are bankable I think it will release a lot more you know free money to the government to do other things well you know all of the technology and innovation you describe precision agriculture mobile extension improved biotechnology particular inputs that are more climate resilient have when applied in say American agriculture generate about one and a half to two percent if we're lucky yield improvement in total year on year and we know when applied to Indian agriculture probably generate four or five times that much productivity growth on an annual basis and so the just the sheer potential of applying that technology is frankly more valuable and can yield more significant outcomes for farmers in particular here then almost anywhere else in the world and on your second point of food prices we've seen often the most important stabilizing factor for access to stable and appropriate prices are getting the quality of production up to standards that allow for really professional marketing and food systems to be successful and so as we come to you for your kind of point of advice for the Prime Minister or for the sector here Nestle is famous of course for creating that price incentive and then bringing farmers up to a level where they're producing at a quality that earns that price what what do you need to help you do that at larger scale here what would your one word of advice be for the Prime Minister Oh well I don't know if I want to give advice to the Prime Minister I think I will stand by what has been said I think for me frankly speaking it would be a very general comment I think what we want as an industry as economic players and industrialists is just a good will from the authorities to listen when we have problems and to be the enablers that's why this Maarastra story is interesting because it seems it's what I see from that is that they have been enablers like yes we have all these guys working wanting to work on the input side on the output on the processing etc now how do we as the authorities we make that possible so that's and of course it's a huge enormous country with a lot of different big diversity and so on so there is probably no magic one for that but the point for us is essentially that we know how to do our business we have extremely good connections with the rural sector with our partners, with suppliers, with clients what we want is essentially a good enablement of that that we are seen as people that can help in making the progress of the country you know and what I think the World Economic Forum has demonstrated in so many different countries is that having a platform where companies public sector leaders, farmers organizations and policy leaders can come together and have that dialogue has proven to be helpful to help others be the enabler that you described so the Maarastra example is one that gets appropriate attention and hopefully can be replicated rapidly Ajay what is your final word of advice I think we're a little bit out of time here but I'd love to hear you I'm saying we have to aim for the cell sustainability of the individual farmer families which is completely different from cell sustainability of the nation as a whole gaps will always be there and trade will fill those gaps international food trade trade within India will fill those gaps but the problem with international food trade is that WTO is failing, FAO is failing and with these free trade agreements I think so there's a shift happening in international trade and I don't know where it's going as a farmer I don't know if we'll be left out of the loop or how things are going to work and second problem I think that needs to be tackled is this trickle down economic model of development will not work there are always black swan events which happen every few years by the time the time for trickle comes to the farming community to the poor sections it stops and then it's like a snake and ladder we start again but those effects never reach those where it is supposed to reach we need partnerships, farmers need partnerships and India as a whole needs partnerships Excellent, Shami can I come to you for the final word here to summarize our panel, when you hear all of this and you think about the work you've done in a village for the purpose of addressing the social outcomes of addressing poverty what is your outlook for what you think can happen and will happen over the next several years in the rural economic development sector Well I'm definitely optimistic but being where I am I have to also admit that it's extremely frustrating because while there are people who want to do work who want to connect with the rural sector but the gap is so huge that connections does not happen and I wish that that would happen because to develop any nation forward you have to have multi sectors working together and collectively and I don't think that happens in India enough and I just wish people would come forward not just to connect with me I wish they would but I think given the fact that a rural sector is so large in this nation I just wish people would come forward, doesn't matter which village it is but until those connects don't happen as Ajit just pointed out there will be left far behind and I just would appeal to everyone out there to make that connect and take that step forward Well that's an outstanding appeal on which to close I will say as we enter into this day of engaged conversation with world leaders here at the World Economic Forum for all of us here to just remember that this very day 820 million people around the world will go to bed hungry at night and at least 600 maybe 650 million of them are dependent on agriculture and rural development for their basic livelihood and for their children to have access to nutrition, education and health and at the same time you heard from all of our outstanding panelists that when you have tremendous public sector leadership with foresight and courage, businesses that bring technology and a willingness to take a hundred year time frame in terms of their commitment to a nation and a value chain and a sector of work and organizations that both represent farmers and do the hard work on the ground to ensure that the benefits of growth of each every single person, I hope you like I am encouraged that the basic vision put forth in this new vision of agriculture that bringing each other together to resolve our problems, work together and engage in the kinds of public private partnerships can both drive commercial success, productivity growth and ultimately can help address and someday hunger as we know it. So thank you very much for being here and let's all thank our outstanding panelists for their leadership and sharing their thoughts today. Thank you.