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Robust food processing sector key to doubling farmers’ incomes, says Jyoti
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Thursday, 24 May, 2018, 08 : 00 AM [IST]
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Our Bureau, New Delhi
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Strengthening the food processing sector is key to achieving the government’s aim to double farmers’ incomes. This was stated by Sadhvi Niranjan Jyoti, minister of state for food processing industries, Government of India, who inaugurated the National Conference on Cold Chain Technologies, Convergence and Capacity-building, organised by the Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India (ASSOCHAM) in New Delhi, recently.
“The government aims to double the farmers’ incomes by 2022, but we won’t be able to achieve that goal until we uplift and promote the food processing sector, which is also important to provide pure food to consumers, create employment opportunities for people and provide fair prices to farmers for their produce,” she added.
Jyoti said, “The government is working towards linking its objective of doubling farmers’ incomes with the need to promote the food processing industry and providing consumers with easy access to quality food.”
The minister also informed that India got investments worth over Rs 31,000 crore in World Food India, held in New Delhi in November 2017.
In her address, she added that the government had sanctioned the setting up of 14 cold chains in Uttar Pradesh out of the total 40 applications received for setting up cold chain projects across states. Similarly, many states were also working on setting up cold chains.
Talking about her recent visit to Poland, Jyoti said that the European nation was quite keen to strengthen its agricultural ties with India, and had even proposed to become a hub to export Indian mangoes to that part of the world.
Addressing the ASSOCHAM conference, Pawanexh Kohli, chief advisor and chief executive officer, National Centre for Cold-chain Development (NCCD) stressed upon the need to build back-end farm gate aggregation points, because though there are enough cold stores in India, there is a dearth of infrastructure. Due to this, we are unable to transport farmers’ produce directly to markets.
B B Pattanaik, chairman, Warehousing Development and Regulatory Authority (WDRA), in his address, talked about the need to promote capacity-building in terms of creating the requisite infrastructure and skill development.
Viney Khunger, managing director, Carrier Air Conditioning and Refrigeration Limited, said, “One-third of everything that is produced in India gets wasted, as such there is need for setting up an effective and integrated cold chain infrastructure.”
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