Rainbow Trouts in Bhutan

 

I guess it does not take much of marketing to sell a fish that evokes images of kisses, mountain streams and rainbows. 

The rainbow trout, aka Oncorhynchus mykiss, loves cold, clean, fast-flowing mountain streams. Native to the Americas it has, over the centuries, become a valuable table-fish - thanks to its great taste (it belongs to the salmon family), the fact that it can be reared with relative ease in fish-farms, and because it fetches a good price in the markets. In India it sells for over INR 1200/kg and counts among the 'high-value' fishes sold across the country. Globally, the top three exporters of Trout are Turkey, Chile, and Vietnam. In 2023, the rainbow trout market was valued at US$ 4.2 billion 

Inspired perhaps by the success of Vietnam, many asian countries have been trying their hand at rearing and exporting this fish. Bhutan is one of them. With its pristine Himalayan mountain streams it ought to have a natural advantage in this business but the record so far has been limited. What could be the reasons for this? 

Efforts started way back in 2008, National Research Center for Riverine and Lake Fishes (NRCRLF), at Haa. Personnel trained at trout farms in Kokernag, Kashmir, replicated a raceway at Haa, and this has been been the centre for trout farming efforts in Bhutan for nearly two decades. The Trout Breeding Centre at NRCRLF has been producing and distributing hundreds of thousands of fingerlings to affiliated farms which in turn produce around 35 tonnes of fish every year. Yet, even at the most fancy restaurants in Thimphu, you are unlikely to find rainbow trout on the menu. Why is this the case? Where does all the fish production go?

One logical answer to this could be that all the rainbow trout produced in Bhutan goes across the border to the Indian market. It takes about five hours to cross 167km of mountain roads to reach Phuensoling, the border town. Even across this border, competition is likely to be stiff from Indian trout farms. 

In Sikkim alone, for instance, there are 760 rainbow trout raceways with an annual production of 340 tonnes in 2022–23, up from 95 tonnes in 2014–15. The state also operates nine hatcheries, producing 619,000 fingerlings in 2022–23. Next door in Arunachal Pradesh, trout broodstock and seed production is being done in two main hatcheries situated at Shergaon of west Kameng and Nuranang in Tawang district. Shergaon has ova production capacity of 100,000. 

India's rainbow trout production has increased from 147 tonnes in 2004–05 to over 842 tonnes in 2015–16 (31% annual growth rate!), with a notable rise in private sector involvement. Key states contributing to this growth include Jammu & Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, Sikkim, Uttarakhand, and Arunachal Pradesh . With such competition just across the border, it is not easy for Bhutan. 

Two crucial inputs trout fish farms - eggs/ova and feed - is dependent on expensive imports. Annually about 200,000 one-eyed Ova (fertilised eggs) are imported from Denmark. Specialised fish feed, with a purported high feed conversion ratio (FCR) of 1:1 (!) is imported from BioMar in the Netherlands for around Nu.200/kg. Biomar itself learnt the ropes of the fish-feed business from American companies and is among the dominant players now. Quite amazing to think that fishes being reared in the Himalayan streams need to be fed with something that is imported from a tiny country 7,300 km away!

This brings us back to the Vietnamese. How did they make themselves one of the top exporters of rainbow trout? As in the case of cashewnuts they surely have many lessons for those who want to approach agribusiness with a clear head and a hard nose for business!

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REFERNCES & LINKS

• Global Rainbow Trout Market (2023) - https://www.factmr.com/report/2084/rainbow-trout-market
• Bongo Gewog, Chukha, to Launch Rainbow Trout Project 
• https://derafarms.com/products/himlayan-rainbow-trout

On Swatters

 

Long ago, a wisecrack noted that mosquitos fly amidst applause. This must have been before the invention of the electronic fly swatter. 

One of the small joys of life is to hear that sharp, sparky zap of an elusive, pesky mosquito getting caught in a fly swatter. This is especially true in summers when the critters seem to be spoilt for choices with so much of exposed skin, and somehow manage to find the most inaccessible point to dig in for a quick, bloody meal, and slip away at the slightest hint of a being caught out.

After one particularly successful swatting spree I found myself looking with much awe and admiration at my battery operated fly-swatter. Who came up with this brilliant invention? How much voltage does it take to electrocute an insect? What does it cost to make this simple, effective contraption?

The answers to the first two questions were quite easy to find - I leant from Wiki that the patent for this device is held by Taiwanese inventor named Tsao-i Shih. First manufactured in 1996,  the "electronic insect killing swatter" is essentially a scaled down version of a cattle-prod, a taser or stun-gun. Built inside its handle is an electronic oscillator, a step-up transformer and a voltage multiplier. 

Designed to prevent children from getting hurt, the bat's double layer of nets are electrodes that deliver a voltage of 1000 volts of more.  While this might seem like a of using a cannon to kill a mouse, the point to note is that the voltage output is controlled by a capacitor rating less than 45 nanofarads (nF), with a discharge limit of 45 microcolumbs (µC). 

What does this mean? I have not figured this nF - µC thingie yet. All I know so far is that a farad is the unit of electrical capacitance - the ability of a body to store an electrical charge. One farad is defined as the capacitance across which, when charged with one coulomb, there is a potential difference of one volt. A nanofarad is one billionth (10^9) of a farad. 

To put the voltage output of a fly-swatter in perspective, a stun-gun delivers an output between 20,000 V and 150,000 V ! 

It is also interesting to know that the cost of making this device in India (~INR 300+) is nearly double the cost in China. This is mainly because the cost of making the plastic components of the bat is more than double in India, making bulk imports a more viable option for traders. 

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REFERENCES & LINKS

* How stun-guns work - https://electronics.howstuffworks.com/gadgets/other-gadgets/stun-gun3.htm

* Electronic fly-swatter patent - https://www.freepatentsonline.com/5519963.html

* Teardown - https://tworks.telangana.gov.in/blog/electric-mosquito-racket-teardown

* Wiki - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fly-killing_device#cite_note-16

An Appetite for Steel

Recent newspaper headlines proclaimed that India is now poised to overtake Japan as the “second largest producer of steel in the world”. This sounds quite impressive - until you see the numbers in perspective. The largest producer of steel in the world - China - produces over 800 million metric tonnes (mmt) while India’s 'record production' was less the 90 mmt in 2015.

The current situation is like that of a huge kitchen that needs to keep itself busy. Excess production capacity is now at odds with low appetite. Over the past 40 years there has been a massive increase in global steel production - especially in China. A country that produced just 37 million metric tonnes (mmt) in 1980 produced more than 21 times that amount - 803 mmt in 2015!

Similarly, on a much more modest scale, India which had been producing 9.5 mmt in 1980 , increased its production to about 90 mmt in 2015.

China’s domestic appetite has been a bit satiated now, so now we are seeing a sharp increase in its steel exports. As with numerous other Chinese products its prices are super competitive, and this is triggering “anti-dumping” measures from other countries, including India. About two years ago, India’s DGFT set a Minimum Import Price (MIP) for 66 types of iron and steel products, while at the same time, imposed duties up to 20% on a number of steel products.

The main countries affected by these measures were China, South Korea and Japan, which accounted for 63.6% of total imported steel volume, and 54.6% in terms of value. As expected, Chinese imports are the largest at over 37%.

Yet, strangely, it is not China or South Korea, but Japan that is at the forefront of the campaign against the restrictions imposed by India. It has threatened to take India to WTO over the import restrictions, and various interpretations of the provisions of GATT 1994 and the Agreement on Safeguards.

What explains this unusual stance?

Some commentators claim that for Japan, India is  just the proxy country used to fight a larger war against MIPs and other border taxes. According to others, this is just a reflection of political clout wielded by steel exporters in Japan. Either way, one thing is clear - higher steel prices is not good news for downstream industries, or for the consumers who end up paying more for cars and cooking utensils.

Lobbies like the Indian Steel Association (ISA) and their counterparts in Japan will always try their best to influence governments for their own benefit. Ultimately, it is for the government to strike a balance between the long term costs and benefits of bowing to the pressure of industry lobbies. And that, unfortunately, is linked to election funding...

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LINKS & REFERENCES

https://www.investing.com/analysis/india-and-japan-take-their-steel-row-to-the-wto,-but-it%E2%80%99s-really-a-proxy-200173645

(26Jan17-BL) - http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/economy/policy/russia-says-steel-exports-to-india-dipped-by-a-third-due-to-curbs/article9503240.ece

(25Jan17, BT - India to be global no.2 steel producer by 2020) - http://www.businesstoday.in/current/corporate/india-closes-japan-second-largest-steel-producing-country/story/244963.html

Reuters (23Jan17) - http://www.reuters.com/article/us-japan-india-steel-idUSKBN1541DX

Forbes (23Jan17) - http://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2017/01/23/japan-threatens-india-with-wto-action-over-steel-good-it-should-to-benefit-indians/#561e021a53ae

(22Jan17 - Taiwan) -- http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/economy/policy/taiwan-wto/article9496340.ece?ref=relatedNews

Hindu (22Jan17): JAPAN THREATENS TO DRAG INDIA TO WTO ON STEEL AS TRUMP ERA HERALDS TRADE TENSIONS

DGFT Notification on MIP (4Aug16) - http://dgft.gov.in/Exim/2000/NOT/NOT16/noti2016.pdf

(4Dec16, IE) - Indian Steel Association (ISA) for extension of MIP for 6 months - http://indianexpress.com/article/business/business-others/extend-mip-on-steel-products-for-six-months-indian-steel-authority-4409972/

(30Mar16 - VCCircle - Timeline on MIPs) - http://www.vccircle.com/news/engineering/2016/03/30/india-extends-safeguard-duty-steel-imports-till-march-2018l

COKE

* http://asia.nikkei.com/Business/Trends/Japanese-steelmakers-switching-to-lower-grade-raw-materials?page=2
- Japanese steelmakers (Nippon, Sumitomo) use better technology to lower costs. They process cheaper, low grade coke to better quality before replacing 50% of high-grade imported coke...this keeps their steel competitive in the world markets.

(2Dec2016) - http://www.infracircle.in/indias-coke-import-financial-year/
> India imported ~ 3 million tonnes of metallurgical coke in 2015-16 --- of which 2 million was from Chine alone!...Metallurgical coke, a key raw material for the steel sector, is used for smelting iron ore in the blast furnace. Around 0.7 tonne of coke is required to produce 1 tonne of steel and it constitutes 40-50% of the total cost of crude steel.
The government on 25 November imposed anti-dumping duty in the range of $16.29-$25.2 per tonne on imports of low ash metallurgical coke from countries such as China and Australia for a period of five years.

The Power of QA

How far will you go to buy a quality product?

According to the Economist, Chinese tourists are flying in droves to markets in Tokyo to purchase... toilet seats!

On the face of it this may seem a trivial or even whimsical thing to buy. But to those who have used to this piece of working art, it is difficult to see the regular plastic and ceramic contraptions as anything but retrograde.

However the point of interest is not the art or electronics but the fact that many of the seats the Chinese buy from Akihabara and carry back home, actually carry the label "Made in China".

Aparently, many Chinese consumers do not trust the reliability of such items sold at home—and refuse to pay the often higher prices charged for export-standard goods. Prime minister, Li Keqiang, has told Chinese firms to raise the quality of their own seats. “At least that could save consumers the price of a plane ticket,” he said.

Saving plane tickets is besides the point. It took a Chinese reader to hit the nail in the head:

I bought many stuffs in Japan even it says Made In China, but nothing in China itself because I know if the Chinese want to sell their stuffs in Japan, they must go through the rigorous Japanese quality assurance procedure, whereas there is none in China.

How do companies, and countries, acquire a reputation for accepting and delivering nothing less than the highest possible quality?

The Japanese embraced the ideas of an American guru, Edward Deming, to pull itself out of the morass of exporting poor quality umbrella's, matchboxes and textiles.

In India it appears that many outward looking, export-oriented companies have grasped the importance of perception, and understood the power of QA. There are also exceptional organisations like Aravind Eye Care and Narayana Health/Hrudayalaya that have blended high quality with affordability and public access.

What will it take for this idea to seem through our government and the vast network of institutions it controls?

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LINKS:

* http://www.economist.com/news/china/21647299-rush-buy-japanese-toilet-seats-prompts-soul-searching-china-race-bottom