Identifying ways to help small farmers in India market their crops more profitably … Partnering to provide on-campus recruiting and experiential learning.

At $271 billion each year, India’s agricultural sector is immense. Are there ways that the country’s smaller farmers can more profitably navigate its vast scale?

Second-year SAIS international development students Chloe Hauenstein, Jamie Lee, Maya Gainer, and Yadian Chen traveled to India earlier this year to research whether creating farmer producer organizations to market their crops might be a way to do so.

Their travels took them to the Maharajganj district of the state of Uttar Pradesh to witness the challenges faced by small farmers up close. Many growers in the region work piecemeal subsistence tracts that yield little marketable surplus. The bulk of the profits from what these farmers do sell is captured by the middle men who broker the deals.

The practicum team collaborated with Chennai-based consultancy firm Athena Infonomics and Grameen Development Services, a nongovernmental organization with two decades of experience working with farmers in Maharajganj. They scaled down their broader proposal, observes Hauenstein, who answered questions by email with the group’s input, to focus on “the role FPOs can play in allowing farmers to gain higher prices and more consistent incomes.”

Once in Maharajganj, the practicum team talked directly with farmers to gauge the possibilities for change. “Farmers were eager to share their challenges, such as their need for irrigation, lack of access to credit, and limited market access,” writes Hauenstein.

The team also identified the need for better training in business and marketing skills as another pressing need for regional farmers. Hauenstein adds that “it was a great opportunity to get out of the bubble and interact with the people whose lives we study at SAIS.”

Tanvi Nagpal, director and associate practitioner in residence for the International Development program, says that the students in SAIS practicums bring diverse skills and experiences that provide “value at a higher level for clients who have a conundrum or an issue.” The analysis provided by practicum teams provides “academic rigor and excellence at a master’s level to independently assess a new problem.”

The students also talked with agricultural policy experts in New Delhi and elsewhere. These interviews often elicited new referrals to other experts who were eager to engage in the search for solutions.

People in this field recognize that the status quo needs to be improved,” writes Hauenstein. “They are excited that other researchers are working on recommendations.

— Richard Byrne

Second-year SAIS student Chae Young “Kevin” Jung is taking full advantage of opportunities to develop his expertise in the infrastructure finance sector. His time at the school has included a stint with project finance advisory firm Astris Finance as well as a summer internship with Chile’s Ministry of Energy.

“I have a long-term goal of bringing clean energy to public transportation through a working partnership between public and private sectors,” he says.

Another opportunity for Jung and other students to further their working knowledge came this past semester through SAIS Global Careers, which hosted a one-day seminar on campus by management consulting firm Deloitte that provided a detailed glimpse into the company’s methodologies and practices.

SAIS Global Careers Director Jean-Amiel Jourdan says that the invitation-only February workshop, Evaluating U.S. Infrastructure Projects, came about because of the school’s strong existing relationship with Deloitte. A number of alumni work at the firm, and Deloitte actively recruits at SAIS each year for both its commercial and federal practices. Jourdan observes that the workshop was part of Deloitte’s strategy “to go even deeper and identify the best candidates at SAIS” even earlier in the recruiting process.

“It’s one of the best partnerships we could dream of, as it yields experiential learning and on-campus recruiting at the same time,” says Jourdan. “It’s built on a long-term relationship and trust.”

Students who attended the event received significant and tangible insights into how Deloitte evaluates infrastructure investments. Jung adds that a highlight of the day was the opportunity for attendees to deploy what they had learned in the seminar.

“We had a chance to use their model to evaluate a hypothetical project,” says Jung, who also served as a liaison between the firm and SAIS Global Careers during the seminar.

Jung says the seminar meshed perfectly with the trajectory of his own goals to merge sectors in pursuit of clean energy. His internship in Chile’s energy ministry was focused on how the public sector evaluated the prospect of integrating electric buses into its transit network, and the Deloitte seminar and his work at Astris Finance are a chance to get a sense of private-sector practices.

“It was a good experience,” he says, “to work with leading professionals from a leading management consulting firm.”

— Richard Byrne