A Co-operative Business Approach In Bio Economy Of India
Dr Parashram Patil
NMML Fellow, Agriculture Economist, New Delhi
India’s bioeconomy is likely to touch USD 150 billion by 2025 and over USD 300 billion by 2030. The country’s bioeconomy has reached over USD 80 billion in 2021, registering a 14.1 percent growth over USD 70.2 billion in 2020. On average, at least three biotech startups were incorporated every day in 2021 (a total of 1,128 biotech startups set up in 2021) and the industry crossed USD 1 billion in research and development spending. India has the second highest number of USFDA-approved manufacturing plants outside the US. India administered nearly 4 million doses of Covid-19 vaccines per day (a total of 1.45 billion doses given in 2021). The country conducted 1.3 million Covid-19 tests each day in 2021 (a total of 506.7 million tests). The bio-economy is based upon products of agriculture and bio-resources, therefore, involvement of the cooperative sector at gross root level is inevitable. Considering the closeness of cooperative societies with agriculture and allied sectors, there is a window of opportunities automatically open for the cooperative sector in the bio-economy of India.
What Is The Bio-Economy: As per, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), Bio-economics could be defined as the production, use, and conservation of biological resources, including related knowledge, science, technology, and innovation to provide information, products, processes, and services to all economic sectors with the aim of moving towards a sustainable economy.
Co-Operative Business Approach In Agricultural Bioeconomy:
The cooperative sector can professionally be focused on the production of renewable biological resources and their conversion into value-added products including food, feed, bio-based products and bioenergy. Since the cooperative sector is closely working with the agriculture & allied sector especially with farmers, it may contribute in sustainable agriculture, sustainable fishing, forestry and aquaculture, food and feed manufacturing & bio-based products. Thus, the cooperative sector can address climate change mitigation, biofuels and bioenergy, GMOs, and employment generation. All efforts should be made to leverage the strengths of cooperatives and transform them into successful and vibrant business enterprises to realize the vision of “Sahakar-se-Samriddhi’ as cooperatives hold the key to rural economic transformation in the country in agriculture and allied sectors. Therefore, Govt of India formed national-level multi-state seed cooperative society which will help to increase the Seed Replacement Rate (SRR), and Varietal Replacement Rate (VRR), ensuring the role of farmers in quality seed cultivation and seed variety trials, production and distribution of certified seeds with a single brand name by utilizing the network of all levels of cooperatives. Likewise, to realize the potential of agricultural bioeconomy and promote sustainable agriculture, sustainable fishing, forestry and aquaculture, food and feed manufacturing & bio-based products, there should be national level multistate agricultural bio cooperative society may be formed that will promote the co-operative business approach in agricultural bioeconomy by utilizing the network of all levels of cooperatives.