Wednesday 20 April 2016

Double agricultural production

According to a distributor of seeds and fertilizers, to double the agriculture productivity, there should be arrangement of irrigation and with the use of bio fertilizers and pesticides the production capacity would increase. Cow dung should be used. With good quality seeds production would increase.  There should be use of hybrid seeds. Soil testing should be done and after soil testing, as per the needs of the soil, bio fertilizers should be added. Irrigation and the best quality of hybrid seeds are very essential. There should be crop variation and then again there should be soil testing to see that the pesticide or fertilizer that had been added and that those have been reduced or have increased. There should be scientific production. The unused land should be made fertile.

The government should check on the quality of the seeds provided by the companies before it comes to the shop of the shopkeepers and it is very much necessary. Because for example if it is written on the bag of seeds, 46% nitrogen, how will the shopkeeper know whether there is really 46% nitrogen or it is less than 46% nitrogen. Factory premise check on the pesticides should be there by the government body and also on whatever is written on the bottle. The Government should impose long penalty if found otherwise.

If there is good quality seeds then there will be good growth of plants. Government university provides breeder seeds. After providing the breeder seeds, the government should under their supervision see that the breeder seeds are used in the land of the manufacturers/companies and under their supervision, should keep checking the growth of the plants and during harvesting time should see that if the growth of  the plants that is shown in the packing is more in ratio than the seeds supplied to them then the packing is not correct that is then it is wrong packing. From providing breeder seeds to the time of truthful labeling, there should be government control because if the company has got the breeder seeds from the government and then if the company mixes unwanted or sub-standard seeds then the growth would be more in ratio than the breeder seeds are provided.

Awareness among the public and farmers about all these is needed and the shopkeepers should also be made literate about the products coming to the shops.

When the seeds are sown depending on their climate/according to the season then there is good production but if the seeds are not sown timely then the production will be affected.

The expiry dates of the seeds is given for 9 months and that needs to be prolonged by the government like for 1- 1&1/2 years after the testing because sometimes the distributors are not able to sell the products during this period.
 
The supply chain is from the company to the distributor, distributor to retailer and retailer to the farmer. The pricing control should be there by the government for the distributor. The Government should increase the margin of the distributor. There is no equality in price. Because a farmer takes a lesser amount for the work he does for the company and the company sells it for a much much higher price. So in Government supervision a farmer should keep in paper the record of the cost of data, how much margin he is taking so that the profit after the manufacturing cost can be decided by the Government for the company. Government should bring margin equality. There is a separate margin from company to distributor and a separate margin from retailer to farmer. 

According to another distributor, company repacking should not be there. The reprint of expiry date should not be there.

According to another  distributor of seeds and bio fertilizers, the seeds are  provided by the company and the seeds are sold to the farmers. Pests can also destroy the plants. Irrigation is main then only the farmers can feel relief because then the crops will be grown and there will be sale.

All these may help to double the agriculture productivity and may help in achieving UN SDGs.

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Monday 4 April 2016

UN Sustainable Development Goals

Goal 9 target: Increase the access of small scale industrial and other enterprises in particular in developing countries to financial services, including affordable credit and their integration into value chains and markets  

The entrepreneur has to go from one bank to another bank for obtaining loan for his/her industry. He/She may convince one bank and may be not another bank and sometimes none of them. So the entrepreneur may sometimes even have to abandon the thought also. 

According to a financial institution, in the present scenario, there is high rate of non performing accounts. This is the main reason for financial institutions not willing to finance new entrepreneurs. The second reason is the lack of experience of new entrepreneurs. Loans for which  security can be provided  are being financed by the financial institutions. There are also loans that are more risky in nature. For non performing accounts fund liability is increased and for that the financial institution officials may also have to suffer.  Sometimes it happens that financial institution officials lending the money are also accountable for the non performing accounts. The official from the financial institution lending the money have to suffer by their money getting deducted by their management for the non performing accounts and so financial institutions do not like to take this risk even though there are genuine cases and even in genuine cases in general, the officials may say that the project is not viable and the entrepreneur cannot contest it. Unsecured loans are therefore not being financed by banks. There is lack of confidence in the officials to lend the money because of this internal procedure and so the internal procedure has to change. If this procedure is reduced from the management then the financial institution officials may come forward in lending money to more entrepreneurs. There are sometimes sub-standard reckless lending. But majority of the cases are hampered due to the internal management procedure and to remove these hindrances internal management procedure needs to change. And the officials require as certainty from government that if the account becomes bad the government will refinance it because then the officials can finance without any apprehension. 

Recently, schemes like Shishu, Kishore and  Tarun have been launched but it's not clear about their coverage for example for trading units. In Shishu scheme, loans upto Rs 50,000/- is being  sanctioned to the entrepreneur. If there is bona fide interest of the person in his/her entrepreneurial activity and if this loan becomes a failure then there is no problem. Shishu scheme is doing well. For entrepreneurs, today's loan is based on cibil score and it should be less than the required limit.

 According to another financial institution, it is public money that comes through safe deposit and term deposit and this money is to be given back to them so banks are careful in giving loan to entrepreneur. There is no such hard and fast rule. The entrepreneur has to convince the bank manager and the bank manager will also asses the viability of the project.and when he is convinced he will extend the loan. If there is money in the bank that entrepreneur wants to use the money later on then there is dual combination that there is money from his own source and bank source. The location of the bank is also important because if the person wants to do business in another location then it may become difficult for the beneficiaries and then the project may not be viable according to the location.

#BankLoANsolutionsforMSMEs  Entrepreneurs, First Generation Entrepreneurs MSMEs, businesses, women entrepreneurs etc can share this.