THE EXPANDING BROILER INDUSTRY
A case study on driving forces and local consequences on the north
coastal zone of Cuddalore district, Tamil Nadu
ABSTRACT
__________________________________________________________________
One of India’s major success stories over the past three decades has been its poultry industry, which has been rising with approximately 8 percent per year since the liberalization of the Indian market in 1991. In existing literature, four key driving forces are pointed out; (i) the consumer demand for poultry is rising, (ii) the structure of the poultry market is changing towards more vertical integration, (iii) the availability and prices of feed and medicines are declining while its quality is increasing, and (iv) the Indian self-sufficiency in high quality breeding stocks. However, this study is mainly focussed on a lower aggregation level of analysis. The broiler industry in the north coastal zone of Cuddalore district, Tamil Nadu is comprehensively described in order to discover the driving forces behind the 21 broiler farms in the research area. Also the local consequences on economy, health and environment, and land use change and transaction are defined. Notable is the positive attitude of the local population towards the broiler industry and the similarities between the entrepreneurs.KEYWORDS
Agricultural industrialization, Broiler industry, Business model, Entrepreneurship, India, Market chain analysis, Land use change,
Bachelor Thesis Future Planet Studies - Urban Planning
Author: Thijmen van Gent 10573836
Supervisor: J.V. Rothuizen
26 June, 2017
Page | 2
TABLE OF CONTENTS
1. INTRODUCTION ... 3
2. THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK ... 5
2.1 INDIAN POULTRY DINDUSTRY ... 5
2.2 DRIVING FORCES ... 5
2.3 POSSIBLE LOCAL CONSEQUENCES ... 7
2.4 DESCRIBING AN INDUSTRY ... 7
2.4.1 NEW VENTURE CREATION ... 8
3. METHODOLOGY ... 10
3.1 RESEARCH METHODS ... 10
3.1.1 LOCATING AND MAPPING OF THE POULTRY ACTIVITIES ... 11
3.1.2 UNDERSTANDING THE INDUSTRY ... 11
3.1.3 THE ENTREPRENEUR AND ITS VENTURE ... 12
3.2 LIMITATIONS AND ETHICS ... 13
4. RESULTS ... 15
4.1 A VIEW FROM ABOVE ... 15
4.1.1 LAND USE CHANGE ... 16
4.1.2 ENVIRONMENTAL CHARACTERISTICS ... 17
4.2 THE BROILER INDUSTRY ... 18
4.2.1 MOTHER COMPANY BASED ... 18
4.2.2 PRIVATE OWNERSHIP ... 20
4.2.3 RAISING PROCESS OF THE BROILERS ... 21
4.2.4 IN BETWEEN BATCHES ... 23 4.3 THE ENTREPRENEUR ... 23 4.3.1 THE INDIVIDUAL... 24 4.3.2 THE PROCESS ... 26 4.3.3 THE ENVIRONMENT ... 29 4.3.4 THE ORGANIZATION ... 30 5. ANALYSIS ... 32 5.1 DRIVING FORCES ... 32
5.2 CONSEQUENCES FOR RESEARCH AREA ... 33
6. CONCLUSION AND DISCUSSSION ... 35
Page | 3
1. INTRODUCTION
The fastest growing component of global meat demand is poultry meat. The rapid growth of the poultry sector in India, contributes largely to this global expansion (Landes et al., 2004). Since 1991, there has been a rapid liberalization of the Indian Economy. The economic reforms, made by the Indian government, on international trade tariffs and restrictions introduced the beginning of globalization in India (o’Brien et al., 2004; Saravanan, 2016). Since then, many agricultural and industrial sectors have experienced substantial growth. Especially the poultry industry represents one of the biggest economic success stories with an annual growth rate of around 8 percent per annum (Mehta & Nambiar, 2007). The growth of Indian poultry sector is driven by several key factors; the consumer demand for poultry is rising, structure of the poultry market is changing, and the availability and prices of feed and medicines are declining while its quality is increasing (Hellin et al., 2015; Landes et al., 2004). With the size and price competitiveness of India’s poultry sector combined with Indian entrepreneurship, India is set to play a more active role in the global poultry industry in the recent future, especially regarding the export to the Middle East (Hellin et al., 2015).
The literature on the effects of the emerging poultry industry, as a result of Indian economic growth, is scarce and divided. Besides increased prosperity and welfare, a handful studies mention the downside of the increasing Indian poultry industry. First, Mehta & Nambiar (2007) mention that the prosperity brought by the economic growth and additional poultry industrialization is not equally shared. Second, the poultry industry poses potential threats to the livelihood of local residents by pollution and subsequent health risks (Sundar et al., 2014). Moreover, the land use change caused by expanding industries in general has often led to degradation of natural landscapes, nuisance and changing housing patterns in developing countries all over the world (Weng, 2002; Rawat & Kumar, 2015). And third, the structural changes in the developing poultry industry is a possible threat to small farmers (Mehta & Nambiar, 2007). ‘‘Small-scale farmers in developing countries are under increasing pressure to fulfil the new market requirements of powerful supermarket chains and agroindustry, which demand product quality, volume, and continuity of delivery’’ (Bernet et al., 2011 p.133). However, the majority of this existing literature on the functioning of the poultry industry focusses on a high aggregation level of analysis (national and global). In addition, the scarce literature on local level is often presuming of nature instead of based on actual research, especially regarding the consequences of the locally emerging poultry industry. Therefore more in-depth knowledge is needed on the organization and dynamics of the poultry industry at the local level.
For this research a case study is performed in the coastal zone of Cuddalore district, a rural area in Tamil Nadu, South India. Cuddalore is an interesting study area because it experienced a rapid increase in poultry businesses over the last decade and a half. Besides that, the southern states are the biggest contributors to the Indian poultry production (Mehta & Nambiar, 2007), this will be elaborated on further in the theoretical framework. The central research question of this thesis is formulated as follows;
What are the driving forces and consequences of the expanding poultry industry in Cuddalore, Tamil Nadu?
The aim of this research is broken up in three manageable bits; (I) describing and mapping the local poultry industry and its structural developments, (II) determine and analyse the driving forces of the local poultry industry, (III) examine the local consequences and dynamics of the emerging poultry industry for the research area. With ‘driving forces’ is meant the wide range of top-down and bottom up incentives to be active in the poultry industry such as subsidies, regulations and other motives.
The research is divided over the chapters as follows. In the theoretical framework chapter, first, the relevant historical and institutional dynamics are described. In the second part of the theoretical framework, an outline of the research designs that are used in the operalization, is provided. The methodology chapter contains the explanation, justification and limitations of the entire research process. Then the results are presented in three sections, of which the first focusses on locating and mapping the poultry units in the
Page | 4
research area. The second section of the results presents a comprehensive description of the functioning of the local poultry industry and the third section describes the entrepreneurial characteristics and challenges of the poultry ventures in the research area. In the analysis is attempted to provide an answer on the research question which can be divided in two parts. In the first part the driving forces of the local poultry industry are evaluated and in the second part the local consequences are determined.
Page | 5
2. THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK
In “Analyzing the Past to Prepare for the Future” Jane Webster (2002) emphasizes the importance of a proper review of relevant literature before performing any type of research. This chapter provides the necessary theoretical background, preparatory to the fieldwork and also to the processing phase. The first paragraph focusses on India’s relevant recent history and trends for the poultry industry. The second paragraph supports the answering of the first part of the research question about the driving forces of the local poultry industry. The third paragraph focusses on the potential consequences for the local region, which is the second part of the research question. The fourth paragraph offer research designs that are used in the operalization phase of this thesis. The frameworks of these research designs also form the basis of the results chapter.
2.1 INDIAN POULTRY DINDUSTRY
Just before the introduction of the liberalization reform package in 1991, India faced rising inflation and an associated drying up of inward remittances. Since then, the orthodox, comprehensive reforms have put India out of the crisis onto a high growth path which it is still on (Nagaraj, 1997; Saravanan, 2016). The reform package includes an international trade liberalization, which together with government efforts has certainly pushed the Indian export of livestock to new heights while the relative import has drastically decreased since the liberalization. The low import trend is not because of restrictive policies but because Indian consumers are very particular about the process of meat production and have a favour for e.g. fresh and halal meat instead of processed meat (Ali, 2007). The long-term economic growth in India is associated with several structural changes on national level, such as changes in distribution of the various sectoral economic activities to the GDP. Over the last decades there has been a substantial shift from the agricultural sector to other economic sectors, namely industry and services (Aggarwal & Kumar, 2015). However, this trend is not visible in the poultry business. Where the agricultural production has been rising with merely 2 percent per annum, the poultry production increased with around 8 percent per year (Mehta & Nambiar, 2007). This makes the poultry sector one of India’s fastest growing sectors (Saravanan, 2016).
Poultry refers to the breeding of chickens, turkeys, geese, ducks and domestic fowls for their meat, eggs and feathers. In the poultry industry a distinction is made between layers and broilers. Layers are held for egg production and broilers for meat consumption. The southern part of India, where Tamil Nadu comes second after Andhra Pradesh as largest egg producing state, accounts for most of the poultry production (Saravanan. 2016). However, especially the broiler industry witnessed a tremendous growth in India over the last decades. Poultry farming is one of the oldest farming practices in India and in the early days backyard farming was very popular. Currently the industry has evolved into a vibrant industrialized agribusiness, engineered and dominated by a large-scale commercial private sector, which controls approximately 80 percent of the Indian poultry market (Hellin et al., 2015). At the moment, around 4 million people get indirect and direct employment from the commercialized and industrialized poultry industry (Saravanan, 2016). The structural changes the broiler industry witnessed over the last decades, will be elaborated on in the next paragraph.
2.2 DRIVING FORCES
When assessing the driving forces behind the poultry industry, existing literature point out four key factors. First, the growth can be explained by an increasing consumer demand for poultry meat, driven by population and income growth, urbanization, and price changes of poultry meat relative to other food products. Also changing consumer preferences contribute to the increasing consumer demand (Devi et al., 2014). The growing middle class is more likely to disregard taboos and furthermore, poultry meat is in contrary to beef and pork much more accepted across various religions. The predominant Hindu religion limits beef consumption and the strongly represented Muslim community is restricted on pork meat by the Islam dietary laws (Hellin et al., 2015). India has witnessed a steady growth of urbanization over the last decades (Maparu &
Page | 6
Mazumder, 2017; Chauvin et al., 2016). This is interesting because urbanization is linked to food consumption in many direct and indirect ways. Generally speaking, urban populations have access to a greater diversity of foods, which includes meat (Godfray et al., 2010). Not only because of increased wealth, also higher availability is a main reason for this better access. Urbanization affects the way people deal with distance. Although daily travel distances of urban residents for personal and work purposes decreases with respect to the rural residents, food is being transported for longer distances and from more diverse places to urban consumers than to rural, agricultural consumers (Dasgupta & Dasgupta, 2014). Also in another way, urbanization can act as a driving force for the poultry industry, in developing countries it often happens that rural people have strong financial links to people living in the city. This frequently leads to the financing of innovation and yield growth in farming by urban remittances (Godfray et al., 2010)
Second, the industrialization and structural developments within the poultry market have driven poultry production by increased efficiency and accessibility. The earlier backyard farming structure has rapidly evolved towards a more vertical structure managed by large hatcheries, this is also called contract farming (Manning & Baines, 2004; Hellin et al., 2015). In contract farming a mother company, or so called integrator, provides a part of, or all the inputs and agrees with the farmer to purchase the outputs after the production process for an agreed price. According to Hellin et al. (2015), roughly 80 percent of the Indian poultry production is vertically integrated at the moment. These integrators combine breeding, feed milling, contract growing, and marketing activities, which leads to improved productivity and reduced marketing costs (Landes et al., 2004). The structural developments have not only resulted in lower prices, also higher quality standards and a more consistent supply of broiler meat are characteristics of the vertically integrated industry. However there are also disadvantages belonging to the structural developments, this is elaborated on in the next paragraph.
Third, the availability and quality of feed and medicines are increasing while the prices are decreasing (Hellin et al., 2015; Landes et al., 2004). Feed is the largest single production cost for broiler production, it can vary from 55 to 70 percent of the total costs. Feed compositions varies somewhat by type, region and season. The most important element in the chicken feed is maize, which can account for 60 to 65 percent of the total feed weight in South India. Between 1990 and 2013 the Indian maize availability increased a lot, with an 160 percent increase in production. Soybean meal is the second largest component and accounts for 20 to 28 percent of the chicken feed (Landes et al., 2004).
The fourth and last key driving factor factor mentioned in the majority of the literature is the Indian self-sufficiency in high quality breeding stocks (Saravanan, 2016). Scientific advances and development, partly financed by the government, resulted in a number of poultry breeds that are adapted to the Indian climate and disease conditions. There are several hatcheries operating in India of which Venkateshwara Hatcheries is the largest with a market share of approximately 60 to 70 percent (Landes et al., 2004). The breeding success, partly driven by the vertical integration of the industry, has resulted in fast growing chickens and low mortality rates.
The key driving forces discovered in the existing literature have a high aggregation level of analysis, which means that especially national and global factors are described. From a social and entrepreneurial perspective, incentives and local driving forces on lower aggregation levels such as individual and local are also relevant, however they are not widely studied. The same applies for the consequences of the expanding industry, which has not extensively been studied on low aggregation level. However, the next paragraph provides an overview of the available literature.
Page | 7
2.3 POSSIBLE LOCAL CONSEQUENCES
This paragraph provides a wide range of potential consequences at local level, which are found in existing literature. Roughly, the consequences of the expanding industry for the local region can be divided in three main categories; local economy, environment and health, and land use change and deals. Both positive and negative consequences and also the uncertainties in literature are discussed.
The most important effect in literature, is the growing economy and associated increased income and employment for actors within the expanding poultry industry. At the moment there are approximately 4 million people direct and indirect involved with poultry activities and this number is still increasing (Saravanan, 2016). However, the prosperity brought by the economic growth and additional poultry industrialization might not be equally shared. Poultry keeping supplements the livelihood of more than 50 percent of the marginal farmers at the bottom of the smallholder spectrum. Especially these smallholders are likely to be affected by the ongoing structural changes. Whether they will benefit or pushed out of business is unsure (Saravanan, 2016; Mehta & Nambiar, 2007). Also Manning & Baines (2004) state that the imbalance of economic power forms a challenge for the vertically integrated industry because it can cause for example loss of independence, and isolation of the producer from the consumer.
The second consequence, is the effect of the locally expanding poultry industry on the local environment and health. In India there are currently little to no environmental regulatory criteria (Chabukdhara & Nema, 2013). The slaughter and hatchery waste, poultry droppings and litter manure could be problem for the environmental safety of the region. Especially groundwater contamination has serious long-term implications (Mehta & Nambiar, 2007; Singh et al., 2013). Musca domestica (House flies) form another nuisance around poultry sheds, not only through the irritation they cause but also by transmitting bacterial, viral, protozoan (parasitic) and helminthic (worms) diseases such as cholera, typhoid, tuberculosis, salmonella and diarrhoea (Sundar et al., 2014).
The third possible local consequence of an emerging industry is the changing land use and associated land deals. In the early 2000s the Indian government initiated a policy to reduce the amount of ‘poramboke lands’, waste-lands that belong to the government (Baka, 2013). Despite that these lands are government owned, these uncultivated lands are often used as common property lands for subsistence by the rural poor. For example, it is used for cattle-keeping, wood gathering, but also as a passageway (Supreme Court of India Report, 2011). Land is as an essential input in any production process. The allocation of property rights of such an input poses an enormous challenge, especially in India where land deals often affect various groups who depend on land for their survival (Chakravorty, 2013). Land transactions are often made with lands that are classified as ‘empty’ or ‘unused’ by the Indian government but are in reality utilized by local communities (Baka, 2013). Media reports, as well as activist and academics regularly claim that land deals expel resisting ‘local people’ from their land. However, recent research indicates that the reality is often more varied and complex. When land deals hit the ground there are miscellaneous impacts and political reactions. Resistance is one example but social groups do not always automatically get organized and mount resistance. Even not when they were expelled or threatened with expulsion by land deals, or whose livelihoods are threatened more generally (Hall et al., 2015).
2.4 DESCRIBING AN INDUSTRY
Before analysing, a comprehensive understanding of the functioning of the poultry industry is required. There are several ways of describing the functioning of an industry. In literature there are various tools available for marketing supply chain, value chain analysis and for describing a business model. Marketing chain and value chain studies both use chains to visualize the entire industry. There is however a small difference. Marketing chain studies focus more on the functioning of the market and the relationship between the various actors within the market system (Aysheshm, 2007) while the value chain analysis is more focussed on the value side of all the activities required for a product (Kaplinsky & Morris, 2001). The marketing chain study is most useful for this thesis. However, whenever possible also the value chain can be an interesting tool when trying
Page | 8
to understand an industry. On business level, literature is widely available. It is however surprisingly difficult to find scientific consensus on this subject because the business model is often studied without a precise definition of the concept (Zott et al., 2011). Zott et al. did a research on the development of business models and discuss in their review that the literature on business models is developing largely in silos, led by and pointed into the direction of interest of the respective researchers. However, they managed to find a few common themes among various scholars; (1) ‘the business model is emerging as a new unit of analysis; (2) business models emphasize a system-level, holistic approach to explaining how firms “do business”; (3) firm activities play an important role in the various conceptualizations of business models that have been proposed; and (4) business models seek to explain how value is created, not just how it is captured’. With this in mind the question remains where to start and what kind of framework should be used when describing a business such as for example a broiler farm. To answer this question Morris et al. (2005) could be of help. According to their review a well-formulated model must address six key questions:
1) How is the value created? 2) Who is the value created for? 3) What is the source of competence?
4) How does the business competitively position their self? 5) How does the business make money?
6) What are the time, scope and size ambitions?
These six key questions will form the starting point of the research on the various actors of the poultry industry. However, in the case an actor requires a more comprehensive description, a more extensive framework will be used. This framework is explained in the next subparagraph
2.4.1 NEW VENTURE CREATION
The previous part of this paragraph discussed the superficial description of the actors and industry, while this paragraph will focus more on describing a business from the social/entrepreneurial point of view. Behind every new business there is an entrepreneur, the creator as well as the guardian of the viability of his new venture. Around 1980 the first literature on entrepreneurship arose which considered the entrepreneur as a separate study object. The basic assumption underlying the earlier literature about this subject was that all entrepreneurs and their new ventures were much the same (Gartner, 1985). Hence, Gartner was one of the first to discover that there are substantial differences between entrepreneurs and also between their ventures. He presented a framework (figure 1) for describing new venture creation, in which the individual role of the entrepreneur is one of the four dimensions.
‘No new venture can be comprehensively described, nor can its
complexity be adequately accounted for, unless all of its four dimensions are investigated and an attempt is made to
discover how variables from each dimension interact with variables from other dimensions’
(Gartner, pp. 698). The four dimensions and their variables are shown in table 1 on the next page.Page | 9
Dimensions Variables
The individual(s): the following psychological and
individual characteristics have been used to describe the difference between entrepreneurs
Age Education
Previous work experience Entrepreneurial parents Job satisfaction Need for achievement Locus of control Risk taking propensity
The process: six common behaviours have been made out
of literature on the process of new venture creation. The entrepreneur; - locates a business opportunity - accumulates resources - markets products and services - produces the product - builds an organization
- responds to government and society.
The environment: every venture and individual responds to,
and is influenced by their environments. These twelve environmental factors stimulate entrepreneurship.
Venture capital availability
Presence of experienced entrepreneurs Technically skilled labour force Accessibility of suppliers
Accessibility of customers or new markets Governmental influences
Proximity of universities Availability of land or facilities Accessibility of transportation Attitude of the area population Availability of supporting services Living conditions.
The organization: not all the entrepreneurship literature
elaborates on the characteristics of the organization. Also, it depends on the type of business which characteristics need to be described. Therefore it is hard to find similarities amongst the literature. Nevertheless, it is amongst others possible to look at
Presence of partners Overall cost leadership Differentiation Focus
New product or service Parallel competition Franchise entry Geographical transfer Supply shortage
Tapping unutilized resources Customer contract
Becoming a second source Joint ventures
Licensing
Market relinquishment Sell off of division
Favored purchasing by government Governmental rule changes.
Page | 10
3. METHODOLOGY
This chapter contains the explanation and justification of the research process before, during and after the performed fieldwork. Because this thesis entails a detailed exploration and analysis of a specific case, namely the emerging poultry industry in a specific research area, this study can be classified as a case study (Bryman, 2012). The case study research strategy used in this study will be strengthened by a combination of various research methods. The use of multiple data collection methods, both quantitative and qualitative, is typical for theory-building researchers (Eisenhardt, 1989). The main goal of this research is aimed at providing a clear, comprehensive description of the entire poultry industry in the research area. Because there is little to no knowledge about the poultry industry in the particular research area, the research has a theory-building character. In theory building case studies, often the research focus emerges after the data collection instead of before. This is because the research question and constructs are tentative until the processing phase (ibid). This is also the case in this study, which means that this research is not necessarily performed in a chronological way. This applies to the three main phases of fieldwork described below but also for the rest of the research process.
The first fieldwork phase is focussed on the locating and mapping of the poultry industry in the research area. In this way not only the research objects and population are defined also it delivered the geographical information which is used to visualise and analyse the data which is collected further on in the research. As pointed out before, the geographical information of the poultry farms is of scientific interest because of the lack of knowledge in both the literature and on the World Wide Web. In this phase also the local resident’s attitude towards the poultry industry is explored.
In the second phase the actors of the local broiler industry and their mutual interactions are the units of analysis. The purpose is not only to discover any driving forces within the industry but also to get broad knowledge about the functioning of it. In order to get a full understanding of the industry, each actor need to be described. As the literature in the previous chapter pointed out, there are multiple approaches possible for describing a business model as well as for assembling marketing- or value chains.
In the third phase the focus lays solely on the level of the poultry ventures within the research area. With the literature about new venture creation in mind it is expected that there are interesting differences between the farm owners and their business on the field of entrepreneurship and other social and individual characteristics. Amongst others, the personal incentives for starting up a business are taken into account as these are the ‘driving forces’ from a personal entrepreneurial point of view.
3.1 RESEARCH METHODS
In this paragraph, the various research methods that are used in this study are explained. The three sections of the research, which are mentioned above, are elaborated on each in a separate subparagraph. Preceding, during, and after the threefold fieldwork, literature has been studied and used for a variety of purposes. Before and after the fieldwork, the study of literature e.g. helped to demarcate the research topic. Also, the driving forces behind the expanding poultry industry are partly examined with the help of a study on literature and government documents. The charting of the scientific background is an important function which helps to determine the methodology. Also throughout the further process, during and after the fieldwork, literature is used for suggestions and substantiation. Chapters which are mainly based on literature study are the introduction, theoretical framework and methodology. However, literature also determined the structure of the results and analysis further on in this paper. The three fieldwork phases, which will be elaborated on, are based on methods used in previous studies.
Page | 11
3.1.1 LOCATING AND MAPPING OF THE POULTRY ACTIVITIES
The first phase is focussed on locating and mapping of all the poultry industry sites in the research area. The poultry properties are the units of analysis in this phase. All the roads in the area are covered and inspected on a scooter and the poultry activities are registered with an handheld GPS system. This method is besides from the collection of geographical information, used because it provides a complete overview of the study area and the research objects. From every corner of each property, the coordinates were taken to measure the location and the exact area covered by the poultry sites. Poultry activities were classified as such when there was any type of shelter or facility to accommodate more poultry than was reasonable for household consumption. For example, a bunch of country chicken walking around dwellings were not registered as a poultry industry site. The coordinates from the field were imported and processed with Arcmap GIS (Geographical Information System). The processing process is focussed on land use change, an indicator for structural changes and potential land conflicts. Land use and land cover change are often used conversely, they are however two separate terminologies which mutually affect each other. Land use describes the way in which lands are used by humans and their habitat while land cover refers to the physical distribution characteristics of the earth’s surface such as vegetation cover, water and human settlements (Rawat & Kumar, 2015). The purpose of using GIS, is to provide a clear image that includes the research area and the land use change. Therefore, the dots that were representing the coordinates of every corner of the poultry ventures, needed to be connected to make polygons. The surface of these polygons, which represent the various farms in the area, are calculated by adding an extra field in the attribute table and by clicking ‘Calculate Geometry’. In the attribute table, the surface area of every farm is shown and at ‘Statistics’ the total area covered by the poultry sites is calculated. The information about the former land use, which is visualized in the maps, is gathered in the third phase.
3.1.2 UNDERSTANDING THE INDUSTRY
Twenty-one broiler farms were located within the research area after the first phase. These farms and every actor who is concerned with these farms are the units of analysis, therefore no sampling is required in this phase. This phase starts with a series of semi-structured interviews with the owners of these poultry ventures. In a semi-structured interview the interviewer has determined a series of questions beforehand but the sequence can vary and there is room for further questions (Bryman, 2012). The data acquired in these interviews are partly used in phase two and partly in phase three of the research. The questions which are intended for the second section, focusses on the industry and on actor level. The part of the semi-structured interview that is relevant for the second section is represented schematically below.
Introduction phase The individual characteristics of the interviewee; name, age, education
Business activities The business model and marketing- and value chain characteristics; numbers, date of origin, labour, batch operation, resources, transactions, animal health/welfare, suppliers, and customers
After a couple of interviews the other actors of the industry could be identified, such as hatcheries, feed- and medicine suppliers, customers, butchers, and (trade) agencies. Although these actors are located outside of the research area, they play a substantial role in the local broiler industry. A couple of these actors are located in Cuddalore city, which is just outside, and thus close to the border of the research area. Therefore it was possible to make an appointment and visit them for an interview. It also occurred that some of the actors were located too far outside of the research area, e.g. in Pune which is over a thousand kilometres away. The data is in these cases of unbridgeable distances collected through telephone or trough other actors. In both cases, either close or distant actors the same semi-structured interview is used. The topics of these questions are represented on the next page.
Page | 12
Introduction phase The individual characteristics of the interviewee; name, age, (wage), working there since, and function
Business activities The business model and marketing- and value chain characteristics; numbers, date of origin, labour, resources, transactions, (animal health/welfare), suppliers, and customers
The second phase also includes interviews with three veterinary doctors from the regional department of animal husbandry of Cuddalore district. This to receive more information about different kinds of diseases and their outbreaks in the recent past. Also data about medicine types and their suppliers were collected here. The topics of the semi-structured interview are represented below.
Introduction phase The individual characteristics of the veterinary doctor; name, age, specialisation, and working area
Disease information The characteristics of diseases and their control; Types of diseases, major outbreaks, symptoms, vaccines and medicines, and suppliers
3.1.3 THE ENTREPRENEUR AND ITS VENTURE
Where the second phase focusses on the driving forces at industry level, the third phase examines the driving forces at individual level. The twenty-one broiler farms and their owners are the only units of analysis in this phase. This third section is structured on the basis of Gartner’s framework on new venture creation, in section two these entrepreneurs are already interviewed at market chain level, in the third phase the semi-structured interview can be visualised as the following;
Individual dimension the individual characteristics of the owner(s); name, age, education, previous work experience, entrepreneurial parents, job satisfaction
Process dimension How did the entrepreneur; come up with the idea of broiler farming (locate the business opportunity), build his shed (accumulate resources), market/sell his products, produce the product, build an organization, and respond to government and society?
Environmental How did the entrepreneur; collect enough investment money, acquire land,
dimension use and acquire supporting services and information, come in contact with suppliers and customers?
How does the entrepreneur think about; labour availability, governmental influence, accessibility of transportation, and the attitude of the area population?
Organizational The organizational characteristics of the venture and owner; differentiation, dimension organizational challenges and market relinquishment
Land use data The historic and future perspective of the land; land ownership, price, and former for phase one land use.
Page | 13
In addition to the process dimension, also the attitude of the local residents on the poultry activities in the area is researched. The second part of the last variable is focussed on the way in which the venture responds with society. In this case, the research population consists out of the residents of Nochikadu, a village surrounded by many broiler farms. Because each unit of the research population is relevant, simple random sampling is used. With simple random sampling, every unit of analysis has an equal probability of being included in the research (Bryman, 2012). Every third resident, with a total of 21, that was walking through Nochikadu, for example on their way to work or to the grocery store, was asked the following question: ‘What is your opinion about the broiler activities near Nochikadu?’ Depending on their answer the rest of the conversation followed in a natural way.
As in the majority of entrepreneurship studies, not every variable mentioned in Gartner’s framework is relevant and therefore used in the description and analysis of a new venture. This is also the case in this research, especially in the organizational and individual dimensions there are variables which either have not been researched, or they were not applicable on the broiler industry within the research area. This will also be elaborated on further in the limitations and ethics paragraph. The variables which are researched do not have to be clarified in most cases, however in the case of educational level there are differences in every country or even state. Therefore the categorization of Chauvin et al. (2016) is used. In this categorization five classifications exist; none, elementary level (Indian 8th standard), secondary level (10th standard), high
secondary level (12th standard primary), and higher education.
Summarizing, the research question is explored divided over three phases. The study consists out of quantitative research in the first phase and qualitative research in the second and third phase. A combination of various research methods is used to describe every phase of the research. Every phase also has different units of analysis. The literature study, forms the basis of the research and is used in every stage of the research. In the next paragraph the steps, obstacles, and limitations will be discussed.
3.2 LIMITATIONS AND ETHICS
The research in the field is conducted over a time period of less than four weeks. Eventually, every broiler farm owner in the research area is interviewed but it required many phone calls and unnecessary visits. Certain entrepreneurs were rarely at the broiler farm during daytime, especially the highly differentiated entrepreneurs, who in most cases had employees working at the broiler site. Others were sometimes too busy or not in the mood for a long conversation and therefore required multiple visits, this could have influenced the answers of the respondents. The short research period impairs the reliability of the research, which is one of the three most important criteria for the evaluation of social research (Bryman, 2012), because it only represents the thoughts of the interviewees within a small time period. In addition, the fieldwork was performed between seventeen April and twelve May, one of the hottest and driest periods of the year. This could also have influenced the opinions of the entrepreneurs negatively and therewith the validity of the research.
During the entire fieldwork, the researcher was accompanied by Ignatius, a Tamil speaking student from the St. Joseph’s Higher Secondary School in Cuddalore. This partnership has been a learning process for both researcher, who had its first translator experience, and translator, who had never talked with a non-Tamil speaking person before. The different accents and vocabulary were very challenging and the lack of the translator’s vocal English skills made the interviews require more preparation and adjustment than expected. The intended open interviews had to be replaced with (semi) structured interviews and questions that popped up in mind often required a lot of iterations and adjustments before it reached the interviewee. After every interview the translator and researcher scheduled some time to write down the data that could not be communicated during the interview. Sometimes this resulted in returning to the interviewee again to dig deeper into the subject but this was not always possible. All in all it was really time consuming. A general limitation of a translator is that it is harder to make contact with the respondent and to respond directly on what he is saying, also because an answer of ten sentences was often translated in merely two. The translations from English questions to Tamil questions and Tamil answers to English answers might have led to
Page | 14
misunderstanding and misinterpreting. Moreover it is difficult to pick up emotions, tone and other details because of cultural and linguistic differences.
When looking at ethical principles in social research, Bryman (2012) distinguishes four main areas. Whether there is; 1. harm to participants, 2. a lack of informed consent, 3. an invasion of privacy, and 4. deception involved. The first principle harm to participants, can entail a number of facets. During the research, harm on the aspects such as stress, self-esteem and other social and physical conditions of the participants has been tried to be minimalised by avoiding sensitive or provoking questions. Subjects such as caste and religion are considered sensitive and therefore not elaborated on. Sadly, physical harm has been done to one broiler chicken of a participating broiler farm, this chicken is butchered on the occasion of a specially, for the researcher organized, feast. The second principle is about providing participants enough information in such a way that they can make a well based decision on whether they want to participate in the study or not. In order to meet this requirement every participant is informed in the introduction phase about the purpose of the research and asked whether they would like to participate or not. Also, they were asked about the mentioning of their names in the end product. The third area of ethical concern is very much linked to the first two notions. In certain amount, the privacy of the participants is violated, for example, when asked about their income. But also when the translator and researcher entered properties unasked and even woke someone up. However, the participants were in these cases very welcoming and open. It is not likely that the fourth principle, the involvement of deception will occur. The participants are honestly told about the purpose and use of the data, and besides that it is not expected that they will ever read the end result. Especially because it first requires translation. However, it is possible that despite the fact that all participants were aware of the study purpose, there might have arisen unrealistic expectations such as a hope for help to improve their situation.
Page | 15
4. RESULTS
4.1 A VIEW FROM ABOVE
The research area is bounded by Cuddalore Old Town in the north, the Bay of Bengal in the east, the Nagarjuna Oil Refinery in the south and the brackish river in the west (figure 2). Local residents mention this area as North- Thittu or Theevu, which means island in Tamil. Thittu/Theevu is bordered by the river, Cuddalore Old Town, the Bay of Bengal, and stretches as far as Parangipettai in the south. Especially the research area, which is the northern part of this ‘island’ has long been very remote from the rest of Cuddalore district due to its absence of sufficient bridges and infrastructure. Since the last decade the accessibility of the research area has improved, mainly because evacuation bridges were constructed after the Asian tsunami in 2004.
Page | 16
4.1.1 LAND USE CHANGE
In the first phase, twenty-one broiler farms and one remnant of a broiler farm were discovered within the research area. This remnant is elaborated on in the next subparagraph and the broiler farms will be comprehensively described in the second and especially in the third paragraph of this chapter. Figure 3 shows the exact location, former land use, and property boundaries of the broiler farms. The majority of the broiler farms are clustered around Nochikadu, which is village located in the middle of the research area. In the narrow northern point of the research area are no poultry activities and in the south are four farms spread around Thiyagavalli, Thammanam Petai, and Nanjalingam Pettai.
Page | 17
When examining the land use change within the research area, there are only three different former land uses. The main activity that gave place to the broiler industry, is the cultivation of cashew. On a cashew tree grows once a year, a cashew nut and a cashew apple. The cashew nut is the seasonal cash crop, which means that it is grown solely for commercial purpose. The apple is a by-product, and even though it is eatable there is no market for it. The majority of the research area is still covered with cashew trees. The second former land use is the cultivation of casuarina, a coniferous tree mainly grown for firewood purpose in the research area. Especially in the southern part of the research area there still are some casuarina plantations. There are also three farms built on former wasteland, which is in the research area mainly used for wood gathering and cattle keeping. The total surface area of North Thittu/Theevu is approximately 4260 acres (17,2 km2), while the total surface area of the 21 broiler farms is almost 14 acres (56 thousand m2). The land used
for the broiler farms is thus only 0,32 percent of the total research area. The surface areas per former land use are represented in table 2 below.
Former land use Surface area in m2 Percentage of total research area
Cashew 39.315 0,23
Casuarina 10.200 0,06
Wasteland 6.344 0,04
Total 55.859 0,32
Table 2. Surface area per former land use. (Author, 2017)
4.1.2 ENVIRONMENTAL CHARACTERISTICS
Cuddalore district has been prone to several natural hazards in the recent past. Starting with the Asian tsunami in December 2004, which caused severe damage at the coast of Cuddalore district. At that time there was no poultry industry of substantial scale yet in the research area. The poultry farms arose after the infrastructural improvements of the region. After the tsunami, bridges and asphalt roads were constructed for future evacuations. Therefore the tsunami was more an instigator than an obstruction for the poultry industry in the research area. However, this does not apply to the other natural hazards that struck the coastal zone of Cuddalore district. In 2011, the Thane cyclone caused the worst damage the broiler industry has faced since its establishment in the research area. Every existing broiler farm at that time lost its roof or even worse, figure 4 shows the satellite images of farm no. 15 and 16 before and after the storm. After the Thane storm only the concrete floor of the farms was still in place. The costs of (re)building a shed is elaborated on further in this chapter. In 2015, a majority of the research area was hit by a flooding, the third large natural hazard in 15 years. The construction damage was limited but many chickens died.
A
A
Figure 4.1 Before Thane cyclone storm July 2011 Figure 4.2 After Thane storm August 2012.
Page | 18
Another major factor in the past decades has been the arrival of chemical and energy industries in and around the research area such as SIPCOT, Chemplast, Nagarjuna Oil refinery, and Cuddalore SRM Power station. Besides from the pollution and nuisance these industries cause, also large scale land acquisition and land use change takes place (Indian People’s Tribunal, 2003). The land acquisition also has an effect on the broiler industry in North Thittu. Two broiler farms have been bought by the Cuddalore SRM Power station approximately six years ago and several farmers received a bid. The remnant is one of the two farms that is bought by the power company and it is also destroyed by it. Unfortunately the former owner of the remnant, who was still living on the property, did not want to talk. The other farm that is bought, is farm no. 5 and is still functioning. The land of farm no. 5 is bought for Rs. 30 lakhs (Rs. 3.000.000) per acre and the owner can stay and live on the property, until he is requested to leave the property. However, it seemed that the plans of the Cuddalore power plant have been suspended or cancelled because it is six years ago that they were active. 4.2 THE BROILER INDUSTRY
In the research area’s poultry industry roughly two different types of marketing chain structures have been found; a mother company/integrator based structure and a private ownership structure (see resp. figure 5 and 8). The major difference between the two structures lays in the responsibility of the local broiler farm owner. In the mother company based structure the broiler farm’s only responsibility is the nurturing of the broiler chickens and the cleaning of the sheds. The rest of the responsibilities and capital flows lay with the mother company. The local broiler farms that have a private ownership structure are fully responsible for every aspect of their business, including the purchase- and sale processes. In both structures the actors are more or less the same, however, in the private ownership structure there is at least one extra actor who sells chicken feed, medicines, and optional also one-day old chicks. In order to make a comprehensive description of the broiler industry, every actor and their mutual relations will be elaborated on based on the explanation of Zott et al. (2011) and the six key questions of Morris et al. (2005) on business models, and the description of marketing chain studies of Aysheshm (2007).
4.2.1 MOTHER COMPANY BASED
One of the most important actors and driving forces behind the local and national poultry industry are the various breeder and hatchery companies. There are several companies active in India such as Senthil Hatcheries, SM Group, Sivasakhti Hatcheries, Suguna poultry, Vp Gugan hatchery, Pioneer Hatcheries and the VH Group (including Venkateswara- and Vencobb Hatcheries). At the moment of this research only two out of seven of these companies are active as integrator/mother company in the research area; these are Senthil Hatcheries and VH Group. The other five companies have been active in the area before in the integrator role, but now only provide chicks to the research area through agencies. This will be elaborated on further in this paragraph, we first focus on the role of mother companies.
Page | 19
A hatchery company is classified as a mother company or integrator in this research when it is concerned with both the supply side of the broiler farms and the sales side. Figure 5 shows the simplified system-level activities of a mother company. The mother companies in this case, have locations spread all over India (figure 6), however the hatcheries for Tamil Nadu are mainly centred around Coimbatore and Palladam. The communication between farm owners and the mother company goes through local branches. VH group for example has fourteen local branches in Tamil Nadu only, to assist the transport and the raising of on average 4.5 lakh (450 thousand) chickens per week. The mother companies all have their own chicken breed, their own feed- and vaccine production factories (figure 7), and their own medical lab to where dead chickens can be sent for examination.
Often the integrator companies cooperate with a broiler farm on the basis of a contract of one year. In this year on average six batches of chickens are nurtured by the broiler farm. Besides of the one-day old chicks, the mother company also provide the broiler farm with enough food and vaccines, this is free of costs for the broiler farm. Furthermore, in the construction phase but also during the production phase the company supports the broiler farms with tips and information. Mother companies can also help with getting a bank loan, in these cases contracts can last longer than a year. On regular basis and especially when mortality rates are above average the mother company visits and check the broiler farms to discover any complications.
According to the broiler farmers as well as the mother companies there is not much difference between the procedures of the two mother companies in the research area. The motive of farm owners to change from mother company is therefore often based on small financial differences or personal reasons. There was for instance a farm owner who recently switched from VH group to Senthil Hatcheries because of a disagreement with the local manager. In the mother company based structure, broiler farm owners get a fixed price of around seven rupees per kilogram of chicken at all three companies. Nevertheless, a small difference of a decimal or even a hundredth can persuade farmers to switch to another mother company because it can make a significant difference on the big numbers of chickens some farmers take care of.
Page | 20
4.2.2 PRIVATE OWNERSHIP
In the private ownership structure (fig. 8), only a few broiler farm owners buy the one-day old chicks straight from the hatcheries of the mother companies. In most cases the broiler farm owners get their chickens from an extra actor in Cuddalore. This actor, Ganesh Agency buys big amounts of chicks, feed and medicines and sells them in smaller amounts and with commission to private ownership broiler farms. Ganesh Agency consists out of two segments, Ganesh Poultry Agency and Ganesh Medical Agency. Ganesh Poultry Agency takes care of the purchase and sale of the chicks and chicken feed. The chicks are bought from various hatcheries located in South India, near the cities Chittoor, Bangalore, Palladam and Coimbatore. Per month, 20.000 to 30.000 chicks are ordered by Ganesh Agency for Rs. 32 to Rs. 40 per chicken, depended on the rates. They can be delivered at the broiler farms on Wednesday, Saturday and Sunday. The chicken feed is bought in big bulks from SKM Animal Feeds & Foods near Erode, Tamil Nadu and is stored behind the office until it is sold (fig. 9). The second segment is Ganesh Medical Agency, This section provides information and medicines for all kinds of production and companion animals. The medicines come from Merial Animal Health, which is a big multinational with locations in over 150 countries. Ganesh Medical Agency has many customers because they have products for a broad diversity of animals. Ganesh Poultry Agency however, sells to almost hundred small and big poultry farms in a radius of 50 kilometres from Cuddalore. They consider a broiler farm small when it has 100 to 1000 chickens and big when it has the capacity of 1000 and more. Using this classification all the broiler farms in the research area can be classified as big, with a capacity varying from 3000 to 25000 broiler chickens. The differences between the broiler farms is elaborated on in the third paragraph. At the end of a batch, the fully grown broiler chickens are eventually sold at market rates to local trader agencies and butchers (fig. 10).
Page | 21
Figure 9. Hallway feed depot of Ganesh Agency (Author, ‘17) Figure 10. A butcher in Cuddalore (Author, ‘2017)
4.2.3 RAISING PROCESS OF THE BROILERS
On average, broiler chickens stay for forty days at the broiler farm (fig. 11). Despite the high temperatures in the research area, new chicks are kept warm during the first few nights with fire pots (fig. 12). Furthermore they require to be fed, watered, and vaccinated two or three times. Water is received from a personal bore well and is according to the farm owners in abundance available. Regardless of the feed brand there are three different types of feed; starter (very soft feed for 1 to 10 days old chicks), growing (moderate soft feed for 10 to 30 days old chickens), and finisher (hard feed for 30 plus days old). When the chickens are approximately 30 days they are only fed at evening and night time to prevent overheating. The high temperatures in the area are the number one cause of death among chickens and therefore one of the main challenges the broiler industry faces. Whereas 25 degrees Celsius is preferable for raising chickens, the summer temperatures in Cuddalore can be 45 degrees Celsius and above at daytime. Especially when there is a land breeze the temperatures can reach risky heights. To oppose the heat, water is often sprayed around the property and on the roof of the shed during daytime.
Page | 22
Another major threat of the broiler industry are diseases such as the Newcastle (Ranikhet) disease, Avian influenza, Infectious bursal disease (IBD, Gumboro), Food and Mouth Disease (FMD) and parasites. However, for some disease there are effective vaccines available. When the chicks are one week old they receive their first vaccine against the Newcastle disease; this RDVF or Lasota vaccine is applied through an eye drop. The Newcastle disease has three main symptoms; diarrhoea, nervous signs, and breathing problems, but is harmless to humans according to the veterinary doctors at the Animal Husbandry Department of Cuddalore district (fig. 13). When the chickens have become two weeks of age the next vaccine, against IBD is applied, also through eye drops. IBD causes inflammation, and organ- and immune system failure and is also not harmless to humans. A possible third vaccine is again on the Newcastle disease but this does not happen on every broiler farm. The vaccine programme works successfully and there have been no major outbreaks of diseases in more than ten years in Cuddalore district. However, the industry is still very careful, especially avian influenza is a really infectious, fast adapting, and fatal disease which can also contaminate humans and causes worldwide a lot of damage to the broiler industry. When there are no disease outbreaks the average mortality rate lays around five percent, mainly due to heart failure and overheating.
Because the nurturing of the broiler chickens is a relative easy job, some owners choose to outsource the daily care for the chickens to a single local labourer or even a whole family. In most cases the labourers are coming from the local villages Naduthittu and Nochikadu. These employees are often paid separately per badge and for cleaning. Although there is some variety, the average earnings lay around Rs. 1 per chicken per badge. So for example a family that is taking care of two sheds of 5000 chickens earn approximately Rs. 10.000 per badge for nurturing the chickens. With the cleaning included, which lays between Rs. 600 and Rs. 1000 per shed, the family income can be up to Rs. 12.000 per two months. However, in those family cases and especially when the family consists out of multiple generations who are able to work, the nurturing of the broiler chickens can be looked at as a part-time job. Also because there are big peaks and valleys in the amount of work required. For example the moments of vaccination are really labour intensive but besides from that there are many moments with low labour requirements. Through this, it is possible for the family members to do also other jobs, next to the broiler work, as well. There are 40 local employees working on the farms and ten out of ten interrogated stated that they were happy with their job.
Figure 13. regional department of animal husbandry Figure 14. Kamaraj coconut cover processing factory
Page | 23
4.2.4 IN BETWEEN BATCHES
After approximately 35 to 45 days the fully grown chicken, with an average weight of two kilogram, are picked up by the mother company or by one or more trader agencies, depending on the mother company and the chain structure. In both structures the fully grown broiler chickens are eventually sold at market rates to local trader agencies and butchers. At the time of the research the market price laid around Rs. 70/kg. What leaves behind is an empty shed containing a floor covered with forty days of chicken faeces mixed with the additional ground layer of the shed. The additional ground layer is a 1 centimetre thick bed of coconut waste (Tamil name: Thipi), which provides comfort and cooling for the broiler chickens. The economic chain of the coconut waste depends on the diversification of activities of the broiler farm owners, which will be elaborated on in the third paragraph. The coconut waste of every broiler farm in the research area comes from Kamaraj, a coconut cover (Tamil name: Thengai Mattai) processing factory in Cuddalore Old Town (fig. 14). Kamaraj buys truckloads (fig. 15) of coconut cover on the market of Kotakuppam to process it to coconut fibre (Tamil name: Thengai Naar). Coconut fibre is used to make ropes and is sold in packages of 31 kg for Rs. 500 to rope manufacturers in Cuddalore. Thipi, the waste product of this process is sold for Rs. 50 per bag (fig. 16) to the broiler farms where it is used to cover the concrete floor. After one chicken badge the mixture of faeces and coconut waste is used as fertilizer for a variety of agriculture purposes such as paddy, vetiver, cashews, casuarina, etcetera. Some broiler farms had a deal with these farmers which meant that they could have the manure for free as long as they came and pick it up themselves. In total, the cleaning and maintaining of the shed takes approximately three weeks. Depended on the arrangements this is performed either by the owner(s) themselves, by their employees or by employees of the buyer of the fertilizer.
4.3 THE ENTREPRENEUR
In the previous paragraph the poultry industry and the involved actors are described. However, the main units of analysis in this research and the largest part of the interviewees are the broiler farms owners. Therefore this paragraph will solely focus on giving a comprehensive description of the characters behind these broiler farms. These characters cannot be seen separately from their venture and therefore, the structure of this paragraph is based on the four dimension framework of Gartner (1985) on new venture creation.
Figure 15. A truckload of Thengai Mattai (Author, 2017) Figure 16. Bags filled with Thipi, in the background the Thengai Naar is drying (Author, 2017)
Page | 24
4.3.1 THE INDIVIDUAL
The first dimension is used to describe the psychological and individual characteristics of the entrepreneur behind a new venture. In the research area there are eighteen broiler farm owners, the majority of individual characteristics of these entrepreneurs are shown in table 3. Not all of the variables belonging to the Individual dimension of Gartner’s framework are examined in the field and therefore not every variable can be shown in table 1. Nevertheless, every variable is at least shortly elaborated on in this paragraph.
Table 3. Individual characteristics of the entrepreneur (Blue =VH group, Green = Senthil Hatcheries, White = private ownership, and Grey = Construction)
All the eighteen broiler farm owners in the research area are married and have children. The
age
of the entrepreneurs vary from 36 to 72 years of age and the average age of the broiler farm owners is 49 years. The 72 years old Pavadai Samy can be called an outlier in terms of age because there is at least 12 years between him and the rest of the owners. Also ateducational level
, the 72 years old Pavadai Samy is an exception because he is the only one who only completed elementary school (Indian 8th standard), which is mandatory in India.According to the classification of Chauvin et al. (2016) the rest of the owners have at least completed the secondary level (Indian 10th standard). Of these seventeen owners, five persons have completed higher
secondary school (India 12th standard) and there are four higher education graduates of which one is a
professor. In short, the educational background of the owners is very diverse and also as to age, the field is
# Entrepreneur Farm No. Age Starting age Education Previous work Entrepreneurial parents Job satisfaction
1 Veerapan 1 50 43 Secondary school Agriculture Yes High
2 Umasankal 2 56 47 Secondary school Agriculture Yes Low
3 Babu 3 46 36 Graduate Agriculture Yes Medium
4 Arun 4 42 33 High secondary Agriculture Yes Medium
5 Pavadai Samy 5 72 62 Elementary Agriculture Yes Low
6 Raguraman 6 36 30 High secondary Agriculture Yes Medium
7 Saravanan 7 51 48 High secondary Agriculture,
Drainage company
Yes -
8 Ganesamoorthy 8 and 19 48 38 and 43
High secondary Agriculture Yes High
9 Sakthivel 9 43 39 Graduate Agriculture Yes Medium
10 Subramanian 10 37 31 Graduate Factory and
Agriculture
Yes High
11 Ajjuppan 11 and 16 40 37 and 27
High secondary Agriculture Yes High
12 Udhayakumar 12 43 39 Secondary school Factory and Agriculture
Yes High
13 Kamalakrishnan 13 55 45 Secondary school Agriculture Yes High
14 Arun Janakiraman
14 56 52 Graduate CEO SGS,
Professor
Yes High
15 Ramachandran 15 58 52 Secondary school Agriculture, Butcher
Yes Medium
16 Duraisamy 17 49 47 Secondary school Agriculture No -
17 Mohan 18 and 20 44 32 and 35
Secondary school Butcher and Agriculture
Yes High
18 Kasinathan 21 60 57 Secondary school Fishery and Agriculture
