In Indian scenario: Introduction The primary sources of methane emissions from agriculture are livestock enteric fermentation, livestock

waste management, rice cultivation, and agricultural waste burning. Of these, livestock waste management offers the most viable, near-term opportunities for methane recovery and utilisation. Methane released from manure management systems can be captured and used as clean energy to produce electricity or to fuel gas-fired equipment such as engines, boilers, or chillers, which can meet part of a farm's energy requirements. Proven techniques for recovery include covered anaerobic lagoons and a variety of anaerobic digester designs. Farms can achieve environmental benefits related to improved livestock waste management. Profile The agriculture sector in India contributes over 20% to the GDP. Small farms dominate the sector, and the main agricultural products are rice, wheat, course cereals, oilseeds, pulses, cotton and jute. Productivity is generally low and is unevenly distributed among States. The sector provides employment to more than 55% of the country's workforce and livelihood security to about 650 million people. The livestock sector contributes around 6.8% to GDP and employs 8% of the labour force. The contribution of the livestock sub-sector to agricultural GDP has increased by in the last twenty years, from less than 15% in the late 70s to over 33% in 2002. The major contribution to GDP comes from the cattle and buffaloes of nearly 80%, the balance being poultry, pigs, sheep and goats. Data:
M2M solution for agriculture real-time monitoring of cows / Deutsche Telekom and MEDRIA partner in M2M solutions / Available on Telekoms M2M Marketplace(http://m2mworldnews.com/) Cows can text, thanks to Machine-to-Machine communication (M2M). Using the VelPhone and HeatPhone solutions supplied by French monitoring solutions experts MEDRIA Technologies, farmers are notified automatically when calving begins or when a cow is on heat and ready for insemination. Deutsche Telekom and MEDRIA have formed a partnership and agreed to cooperate in equipping 5,000 farms around Europe with the application and with Telekom SIM cards. M2M solutions deliver major benefits in nearly all industries, says Jrgen Hase, head of Deutsche Telekoms M2M Competence Center. That is why we are banking on innovative partners like MEDRIA Technologies, who know the specific demand and use cases in their industry. Together with strong partners, we develop and provide end-to-end M2M applications to best serve customer demand. For MEDRIA, Deutsche Telekoms excellent network quality was the deciding factor. For us, it ensures that important information is relayed securely and is highly available, says Emmanuel Mounier, MEDRIAs Managing Director. Another advantage is Deutsche Telekoms marketing support, including the use of the M2M Marketplace, where the products are now available. The Telekom SIM Cards are housed in M2M data collection devices in the cows stable or the field. Special sensors measure the cows vital data and relay it to the data collection device. The device then notifies the farmer immediately by sending a text message. M2M communication technology means that the farmer no longer needs to spend long nights in the stable. The M2M solution ensures that he can intervene promptly when a cow is about to calve and can make optimal use of the short time when a cow is on heat. The result is a higher reproduction rate for the herd, while avoiding emergencies means less stress and more profit for the farmer. Data readings are not just available as texts on the farmers cell phone. Every farmer can follow his

cows vital data on the MEDRIAs Daily Web Services Internet platform thanks to the M2M GPRS data transmission link between the data collection device and MEDRIAs datacenter. If the Telekom network is not available, the SIM card switches automatically to the best available network at the location and thereby ensures constant availability even in remote areas. Market size: BMI View: While 2011/12 and 2012/13 are expected to be promising years for the Indian agriculture sector, given better prospects for crops, we are less optimistic about the policy landscape for the industry. We view India's Food Security Bill as little more than a politically expedient proposal which does not benefit farmers as much as it does politicians. In our view, the bill not only skirts the underlying problems of corruption, ill-equipped distribution systems and poor agricultural productivity, it also will be detrimental to the country's already-precarious fiscal position. We highlight that if the bill is enacted in 2012, domestic procurement of food grains could be kept high, and export momentum could be prevented into 2013. Key Forecasts Sugar production growth to 2015/16: 42.5% to 34.8mn tonnes. Strong growth will be driven by rising domestic demand, in turn providing production incentives. Milk production growth to 2015/16: 22.7% to 143.6mn tonnes. Growth will largely come from increasing domestic consumption of milk, as well as demand for value-added goods such as cheese and butter. Palm oil production to 2015/16: 4.0% to 52,000 tonnes. We are sceptical about the government's goal of increasing palm oil production seven-fold by 2015/16. 2012 real GDP growth: 7.3% (up from 6.8% in 2011; predicted to average 7.6% from 2012 until 2016). 2012 consumer price inflation: 6.6% average (down from 8.7% average in 2011; forecast to average 5.5% from 2011 to 2016). 2012 central bank policy rate: 7.75% average (down from 8.5% in 2011) Industry Developments To date, only 15% of the milk produced in India is processed and packed, with 46% of milk produced in liquid form. Considering the small percentage of milk processed in the country, this leaves a lot of room for adulteration and unhygienic handling and distribution of milk (see 'Almost 70% Of Milk Samples Tainted'). In a bid to boost the packaged dairy products sector, the Indian Dairy Association (IDA) has promoted a tax exemption on dairy equipment and machinery to encourage investments in processing. The IDA has also suggested a 4% VAT for all dairy products, which could help boost consumption. With the 2011/12 sugar harvest coming to an end, we shift our focus to the 2012/13 crop. We are currently forecasting lower production growth of 4.8% to 27.3mn tonnes but foresee further downside risks to our projection. Indeed, the sector has been experiencing oversupply, lower prices and lower profitability, and an output down cycle typically follows. However, given the government's caution over releasing sugar exports onto world markets and the current level of domestic stocks (the US Department of Agriculture estimates that 2011/12 beginning stocks are 14% higher than in 2010/11), we doubt that there will be a replay of the 2009-2010 situation where the country turned into a net importer of sugar for the first time in years. Imports of refined palm products in February support our long-held view for increased demand for refined palm oil (olein). The palm oil tax regime change in effect in Indonesia since October 2011 makes importing Indonesian refined palm oil cheaper. According to latest data from the Indian Solvent Extractors' Association, imports of palm olein soared by 238% year-on-year to 304,048 tonnes in February. Trends in india: 1. Trend in Pattern of Consumption and Likely Demand for Foodgrains There has been a slow down in the growth rate of direct demand for foodgrains consumption on account of several factors. First the growth rate of population has decelerated to 2.16 percent per annum during 1991-2001 from 2.39 percent per annum

during the earlier decade. Second, with rise in per capita income and changing tastes and preferences, the food basket is getting rapidly diversified. With such a diversification of consumption, the income elasticity of demand for foodgrains has declined perceptibly. The consumption patterns have been changing both in rural as well as in urban areas. The pattern of consumption of foodgrains over the years indicate a consistent fall in consumption of cereals both in rural as well as urban areas. In between the period from 1977-1999, the cereal consumption per capita in rural areas declined from 192.6 Kg per annum to 152.6 Kg per annum ( a decline of about 21 percent) while in urban areas the corresponding decline was from 147 Kg to 125 Kg ( a decline of about 15 percent). 2.Exports Indias Agricultural Trade : Some Recent Trends India has been both an importer and exporter of agricultural commodities for a very long time. Indias agricultural exports after growing at a rate of only 0.78 percent per annum during the period from 1961 to 1971, registered a steep hike and during the period between 1971 to 1981 increasing at an annual average growth rate of 18.36 percent. During the decade of 1980s the growth rate of exports again plummeted to 2.24 percent per annum. The economic liberalization and trade reforms introduced in 1991, helped India accelerate the growth rate of exports to 7.42 percent per annum (Bhalla: 2004). While during the first half of the 1990s Indias agricultural exports performed extremely well, however since 1995-96 these have shown extreme fluctuations. Although the World Trade Organization (WTO) Agreement on Agriculture in 1995 was expected to improve Indias agricultural exports, this does not seem to have happened. There have recently been some signs of a turnaround during 2002-03 and it is expected that this trend will continue (MTA). Bhalla (2004) however opines that this sudden surge in Indian exports has to some extent been the result of existence of large stocks and transport subsidy made available to exporters.

3. IMPORTS: Indias agricultural imports have displayed extreme fluctuations, with sudden surge in imports during the mid 90s. In the post 1995-96 period, the fluctuations in imports have varied in the range of 58 per cent to (-)29 per cent. The percentage share of agricultural imports in total imports also has shown very high volatility, having moved in the range of 28 per cent to less than 2 per cent during the same period. There was, in fact, a negative growth of 29 per cent in 2000-01 but since then, agricultural imports have grown at a relatively high rate of about 23, 22 and 27 per cent in 2001-02, 2002-03 and 2003-04 respectively. In recent years, imports of only two items, namely, pulses and edible oils have recorded consistently high volumes. Import of pulses, which used to vary in the range of 3-6 lakh tonnes in recent years except in 1997-98, when over 1 million tonnes were imported, surged to over 2 million tonnes in 2001-02 and has been close to that level since then, essentially reflecting shortage of domestic production. Similarly, import of edible oils surged from 1 million tonnes in 1995-96 to over 4 million tonnes in 19992000 and has since been moving in the range of 4.2 to 5.3 million tonnes per year, accounting for about half of domestic consumption. As in the case of agricultural export items, concerted efforts are required to raise the productivity and production of both pulses and oilseeds in the domestic sector. Thus on balance, while after 1996 there was a deceleration in export growth, the agricultural imports have shown an increase. In fact the