India's 1.2 billion population is eating increasing amounts of packaged and processed foods, using the financial benefits of an economy growing at nearly 6% to try western staples from McDonald's to Knorr packet soups.

"We aim to start a corn milling unit with a daily 800 to 1,000 tons processing capacity by 2014," Siraj Chaudhry, chairman of Cargill India, told reporters.

The company, a bellwether of world commodity markets, is acquiring land at Davangere in Karnataka, the top corn-producing state in India, Asia's second-largest grower of the grain behind China.