Although a country that has a wide range of religions and eating habits, some of the Indians are prepared to eat meat, especially chicken but including pork. The new and growing, richer middle class is prepared to eat more meat, so long as it is “hygienic” pork that has not been fed garbage. While some of our grandmothers and mothers here in Canada still have reservations about cooking pork to a medium doneness for fear of trichinosis, there is a real aspect to garbage-feeding and street-roaming for many of the pigs in India that worms are a consideration in the pig meat.

People in the NE part of India are real meat eaters, with a preference for pork. There is insufficient pork in the region for the local demand and so pork is imported from other areas that may have an excess. These people are also interested in further development of their pork industry, including added production, packing and processing.

India’s economy is growing 9% annually. In order to maintain this level of economic activity, the Indian government has determined that agriculture needs to grow at a 4% rate to sustain the overall growth rate. In order to achieve these levels, agricultural development will have to improve its (a) overall intensity, (b) production efficiency and (c) added value from processing. India’s government has taken on Holland’s Rabobank to be its agricultural strategy advisor and for its first effort, Rabobank will provide $100 million in development funds for Indian farmers to enhance their production and productivity.

India won’t be a significant food exporter but it will need to produce a lot of food to keep its 1.1 billion population fed.

Blue Ridge Colony weighs its hogs into a 96.5 carcass average from getting 88.6% of hogs in the target range. An index average of 112 comes from 18.2 mm backfat and 60.7 mm loins in shipping to OLYMEL.