Agri next biggest theme after infra for next 5 yrs: Antique

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Antique's Food and Agri Conference is currently underway. Food security, changing demographics, and food consumptions patterns in India are the topics of discussion.

Around 85 institutions are attending the conference. Some of the prominent companies include Bajaj Hindustan, Pantaloon Retail, Marico, Bayer Cropscience, Monsanto, Camson Biotech, Jumbo King, Katraj Dairy, PI Industries, REI Agro, Sabero Organics and Agrotech Foods.

Commenting on the same, Anish Jhaveri of Antique Stock Broking said agri can be the next biggest theme after infrastructure in the next five years.  He is extremely bullish on the fertilizer space. BGR Energy is his top mid-cap pick.

He expects a decisive decision from today's Empowered Group of Ministers meet on fuel prices. "We expect a complete deregulation of petrol and a partial hike in diesel prices."

Below is a verbatim transcript of the interview. Also watch the video.

Q: One word on the oil space, it seems there will be an EGoM meeting today but its unlikely there will be any big bang out come of that-how would you approach it and what are you expecting to hear?

A: The fact that finally they got all the ministers to come and attend is a big achievement for the government. However, it's never too late. The time bomb is ticking in terms of subsidies. We do expect a decisive decision coming along oil front today and we do expect you will see finally India being decontrolled at least for petrol to start with and diesel to reasonable extent. So your subsidy bill goes down and hence we continue to be extremely bullish on Oil India and ONGC at the upstream level.

Q: Talking about your conference there is a real diverse presentation you have got there. There is lot of consumer related themes like Marico, plus there is pure sugar play like Bajaj Hindusthan what was the premise for the conference?

A: The premise of the conference was simple we have always believed in getting the knowledge and the content part to our investors. Hence we realized that although officially agriculture accounts for only 17% of the GDP, if you look at the larger way and if you include tertiary-it accounts for much larger space than what we are seeing in official figures.

Let us not forget that almost 60-65% of our population depends on agriculture and food processing. So here is a sector, which we believe, if given the right fillip and attention is drawn of the investors, this probably after infrastructure, can be the next biggest theme in the next five years for India. That was the entire premise for having diverse corporates mind and domain experts to come and debate this entire topic.

Q: In your opinion is the demand going to be robust in all the verticals that you are showcasing in this agro-economic theme because you have a couple of seed companies, you have pesticides-where do you see the most traction?

A: It's to try and built knowledge around this entire industry. It's not one particular vertical that we are looking at. We have companies like Jumbo King and Tibbs, which are not listed but are significant companies because they aid the food on the move. We have got couple of dairy companies coming and finishing off the entire connect between rural areas and urban areas.

So here are the themes that we want to present to the investors that do look at it. Can this industry attract another USD 150 billion opportunity in terms of investments?-we would like to debate that and that is the interesting part we are bringing to the table.