Earlier this year, India’s government made the decision to launch a funded campaign to increase their overall efficiency and output in the food processing and manufacturing industry. Although it’s still in the early stages of development, they’ve already set up several “parks” throughout the country where factories and tech development labs are set up. To help improve India’s new found growth in the food industry, US-based agriculture company Cargill announced plans to invest a whopping $91 million into the project. So, how will this money be used? Keep reading and we’ll give you the details on Cargill’s $91 million investment.
As of 2012, India’s population has grown to roughly 1.2 billion residents, which is only second behind China’s lead of 1.3 billion. While India is seeing a steady economical growth, they are finding it hard to keep up with the food demands set forth by such a large population. The government recently stepped in earlier this year to launch a widespread program aimed at revitalizing their food manufacturing and processing industry. Included in this project are plans to build over 30 large processing plants throughout the country. In addition, India’s government will financial aid, storage facilities, tech development labs and training programs to any companies that wish to join this growing industry.
Cargill is based in the U.S. where they work primarily on agriculture products. Part of the company’s $91 million investment is reported to be going towards a $73 million corn milling unit, which would benefit the country’s corn production output. It’s unclear where the rest of the investment is going towards, but it will likely be used for more infrastructure development, as this is what India is in need of most.
It’s important to note that the new $73 million corn milling unit won’t be ready for quite some time. According to Cargill’s chairman for India operations Siraj Chaudhry, though, he claims that it will be able to produce 1,000 tones of corn processing power by 2014. That’s certainly an impressive number, but only time will tell if it’s able to achieve this feat or not.
Although nothing is set in stone as of yet, Cargill has been scouting the lands around Davangere in Karnataka for their new corn plant. This of course would be a perfect place for it given the fact that it’s an industrial area where workers can easily communicate to and from with plenty of transportation options available.