2009 October | IndusLatin

Frugal engineering – Indian Firms Shift Focus to the Poor

October 31st, 2009 Posted in India, Science and Innovation, Technology

This kind of innovation can serve all Bottom of the Pyramid markets. In Latin America about 25% percent of the people (130 or so million) live on less than $2 a day.
WSJ.com

India’s many engineers, whose best-known role is to help Western companies expand or cut costs, are now turning their attention to the purchasing potential of the nation’s own 1.1-billion population.

The trend that surfaced when Tata Motors’ tiny $2,200 car, the Nano, hit Indian roads in July, has resulted in a slew of new products for people with little money who aspire to a taste of a better life. Many products aren’t just cheaper versions of well-established models available in the West but have taken design and manufacturing assumptions honed in the developed world and turned them on their heads.

For the farmer who wants to save for the future, one Indian entrepreneur has developed what is, in effect, a $200 portable bank branch. For the village housewife, a wood-burning stove has been reinvented to make more heat and less smoke for $23. For the slum family struggling to get clean water, there is a $43 water-purification system. For the villager who wants to give his child a cold glass of milk, there is a tiny $70 refrigerator that can run on batteries. And for rural health clinics, whose patients can’t spend more than $5 on a visit, there are heart monitors and baby warmers redesigned to cost 10% of what they do elsewhere.

Such inventions represent a fundamental shift in the global order of innovation. Until recently, the West served rich consumers and then let its products and technology filter down to poorer countries. Now, with the developed world mired in a slump and the developing world still growing quickly, companies are focusing on how to innovate, and profit, by going straight to the bottom rung of the economic ladder. They are taking advantage of cheap research and development and low-cost manufacturing to innovate for a market that’s grown large enough and sophisticated enough to make it worthwhile.

GE’s chairman, Jeffrey Immelt, on a recent tour of Asia, outlined how the global giant is restructuring to take advantage of what he calls “reverse innovation.” While in India this month, he said the innovations in medical equipment [in India] could eventually help bring down the cost of health care in the U.S. Read the rest of this entry »

Indian PM calls for national food processing strategy

October 8th, 2009 Posted in Uncategorized

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Opportunity to transfer knowhow from Chile, Argentina, Brazil to India in this regard.
ap-foodtechnology.com

Central to his plan was the introduction of a simplified tax structure to stimulate the food processing industry.

“I recognize we need to look at the tax structure,” said Singh. “Primary agricultural commodities are mostly exempt from taxing but processed foods are subject to multiple levies. There is an urgent need to rationalize and simplify the tax structure [for processed food].”

This, Singh hoped, would bring India’s low level of food processing in line with other nations. The country [India] currently has a food processing level of about six per cent, compared with up to 80 per cent in the developed countries and more than 30 per cent in most other Asian and Latin American countries, he said.

Technorati Tags: food processing, India

Developing countries need $83 bn a year to feed 9.1bn people in 2050

October 8th, 2009 Posted in Agriculture, Ecology/Environment, Economics - Indicators, Policy and Trends, India, Infrastructure

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livemint.com

Primary agriculture investment needs include some $20 billion a year earmarked for crop production and $13 billion for livestock, the FAO said in a paper ahead of a forum on how to feed the world in 2050 it is due to hold on 12 Oct-13 Oct in Rome.

A further $50 billion a year would be needed for downstream services, such as storage and processing facilities, it said. Most of this investment would have to come from private investors: farmers buying seeds, fertilisers and machinery and businesses investing in processing facilities, the agency said.

On top of this, public investments are needed in agriculture research and development, in big infrastructure projects such as building roads, ports, storage and irrigation systems as well as into education and healthcare, the FAO said.

Up to $29 billion of the $83 billion projected annual net investments in agriculture would need to be spent in the two countries with the largest populations — India and China.

Sub-Saharan Africa would need about $11 billion, Latin America and the Caribbean region would require some $20 billion, the West Asia and North Africa $10 billion, South Asia $20 billion and East Asia $24 billion, it said.