Contagion

Stevia

The other thing I did today was to meet CEO of medicinal herbs company who connects the suppliers to the demand. I had queries on stevia and the response was that bid ask yield has reduced from 90/150 to 60/90 in 2 years. Currently there are no farmers who are cultivating stevia in wayanad. The climatic conditions are cold which cause flowering. Flowering a decreases the yield of stevia leaf. He was able to spare some time for me and showed me a sample of stevia powder of puritan brand imported from US. The label reads nutritional supplement. A very pertinent point as there are political implications to stevia from companies which have poured billion dollar investments into sugar substitutes. The other political problem is the sugarcane lobby.
The insight which he gave me was that the very Institutional voids which we criticize in India can help make stevia a success here. Now the challenge is generating demand. I thought the package might be a problem. If stevia is properly packaged in smaller packets, it can be a hit with juice wallahs. Coke uses Stevia in Japan, so another big market. The biggest market is households as stevia stays stable at high temperatures, even 400 degree centigrade.
To find farmers in wayanad who are cultivating stevia in wayanad, I got the suggestion to contact nurseries in and around kalpetta as growing stevia seedlings requires careful supervision. Good irrigation and hot sun are good enough for stevia to grow.

It has been quite a day for me. Recounting the details might take the juice out of readers who love one genre more than the others.
Among one of the ten magazines I picked up today two things struck me
1. US has a 14 trillion dollar economy , China has about 3.5 trillion dollar economy and India has a 1.1 Trillion dollar economy , looking at the magnitude of difference in size of economies, the decoupling theory does not hold.
2. An article on SIV Structured Investment vehicles , which are nothing but a synthetic of banks , borrow short and invest long. similarly Banks lend long. Now these long investments have to be liquid i.e. tradeable and offer an arbitrage opportunity. SIV are in a spot because liquidity has dried up as subprime CDO's are not generating cash flows.