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Seminar- Food Processing&Value Addition
Ministry of Food Processing Industries (MOFPI), Government of India in partnership with CII organized “One-day Seminar on Food Processing and Post – Harvest Value Addition” on Tuesday, 27 March 2018 at Madurai, Tamil Nadu.

Photo Caption :
(L-R: Mr Shunchonngam Jatak Chiru, IAS, Commissioner, Department of Agricultural Marketing & Agri Business, Government of Tamil Nadu delivering the Inaugural Address; Mr Nagaraj K, Vice Chairman, CII Madurai Zone & Managing Director, Aparajitha Corporate Services Pvt Ltd; Dr S Suresh, Dean (i/c), Agricultural College & Research Institute, Madurai of Tamil Nadu Agricultural University; Dr S Rajamohan, Chairman, CII Madurai Zone & Managing Director, Enviro Care India Pvt Ltd; Mr Sounder Kannan, Managing Director, Naga Limited; Mr K Ganeshan, Head, CII Madurai Zone)

Ministry of Food Processing Industries (MOFPI), Government of India in partnership with CII organised “One-day Seminar on Food Processing and Post – Harvest Value Addition” on Tuesday, 27 March 2018 at Madurai, Tamil Nadu.

Dr S Rajamohan, Chairman, CII Madurai Zone & Managing Director, Enviro Care India Pvt Ltd, welcomed the participants.

In his address, Dr S Suresh, Dean (i/c), Agricultural College & Research Institute, Madurai of Tamil Nadu Agricultural University, said that though India has become a net exporter of many agricultural products, its share in world trade in agriculture is just 2%. Hence, there is a need to turn our farmers into entrepreneurs. Due to lack of adequate post-harvest and food processing infrastructure, over 20% of cereals, and up to 40% of vegetables & fruits go waste. India’s post-harvest loss is estimated at a whopping Rs 53,000 crore. The need of the hour is post-harvest management and food processing capabilities. He said that there is a scope for farmers to produce a food ingredient by combining two different types of agricultural produce. For instance, there is a huge demand in Middle East and the US for flour made of Madurai 1 variety toor dal and Trichy 3 variety rice. Suresh announced that the Institute is setting up a cold storage cum godown with the capacity to store upto 2 tonnes of vegetables and fruits, at the cost of Rs 64 lakhs. An Agri Business Centre is also coming up at the Institute in Madurai. The Centre is modelled on a similar facility in Coimbatore. It will cater to the information needs of farmers on latest agri technology.

In his Special Address Mr Sounder Kannan, Managing Director, Naga Limited, said that water is a key resource in agriculture and food processing industry, and goes on to determine competitiveness of a country. In the last three years, Russia could make available 50 million tonne of additional water to its agriculture sector. This has resulted in an increase of rice and vegetable production by several times. The additional production is exported to other markets and helped the country build foreign exchange reserves. To be globally competitive, Indian farmers should become experts in water management. It is desirable to establish a system of value protection for the agricultural produce just like the one that is there for the precious metals like gold. Farmers should maintain high standards of ethics. They must not game the system – they should make use of government schemes for the right purpose.

Inaugural Address, Mr Shunchonngam Jatak Chiru, IAS, Commissioner, Department of Agricultural Marketing & Agri Business, Government of Tamil Nadu, said that the State has the potential to host a flourishing food processing industry. Many things are going good for the State but the food processing sector has not yet realized its full potential. There are 24,000 registered micro and small enterprises and over 1,300 medium and large industries in the food processing sector. But the food processing industry is not as visible as an IT or automobile industry. So far the food processing industry in Tamil Nadu has failed to take off. There is no mega food park in the State so far.

To claim its rightful status and to help the industry realize its full potential, the Tamil Nadu government has decided to come up with an exclusive Food Processing Industry Policy. The Policy has the best of what the neighboring states like Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka have for this sector. The Policy envisages to set up 10 Food Parks with the support of the private industry and financial institutions. Government will make the land available for the parks and will have policy initiatives and incentives like it offers to the IT or automobile industry.

The Government will also invest in the Common Infrastructure.

The focus of the policy will lie in the following eight strategic areas:

1) Protection of agricultural produce by developing infrastructure for value addition. The government is keen to make every farmer an expert in water management, helping him/her realize more crop per drop.

2) Enhancing raw material availability to the food processing industry. This can be done by developing back-end linkages with farms and developing cold storage based godowns and logistics.

3) Promotion of core infrastructure for the processing industry. It could be logistics for the cold chain or packaging for the food processing industry. The government will identify what are the core infrastructure for different areas of agriculture and agro industry and invest in setting up them. The government will offer plug and play environment for the farmers and entrepreneurs to make use of them at a fee.

4) Revenue growth for farmers and the food processing industry by helping them to meet the demand of identified end-product segments. An end product could be curd or ice cream in the context of milk. There will be support for the farmers and the industry to map, forecast and meet the demand of such end products.

5) Promotion of the adoption of safety standards.

6) Enhance the competitiveness of the food processing sector of Tamil Nadu by helping them benchmark against global competition, in view of the WTO guidelines likely to come into force by 2023 and thus remove many trade barriers in agriculture.

7) Promoting Tamil Nadu as the favorable destination for the food processing industry by providing fiscal and other forms of incentives and enabling policy environments.

8) Increasing the penetration of the processed food industry by changing the food habits of consumers in favour of taking in processed foods.

He said that the Contract Farming Act will be likely to be in place in 2018-19 in Tamil Nadu.

Government will create about 50 primary processing centres that will have cold storage and ecommerce facilitation for the agricultural produce. These centres can be managed by private players or farmer producer organizations.

Mr Nagaraj K, Vice Chairman, CII Madurai Zone & Managing Director, Aparajitha Corporate Services Pvt Ltd, provided Concluding Remarks.

The Plenary Session was addressed by Eminent Speakers on the topic Value Addition of Chillies, Banana & Millets by Mr A P J Jaisinh Vaerkar, Director, The Peninsular Export Company; Mr G Ajeethan, Executive Director, Tamil Nadu Banana Producer Company, Ltd, Trichy; Mr M Palanisamy, Program Leader, Rainfed Farming, Development Programme, Dhan Foundation; Supply Chain & Value Chain and Government Policies on FPO - Benefits for Traders by Dr T N Balamohan, Professor & HOD, Department of Horticulture & Crops, Agricultural College; Status of Solar Assisted Food Processing in India with Case Studies by Dr C Palaniappan, Managing Director, Sun Best; Cold chain for Fruits & Vegetables by Mr Wilson Jebaraj, Commercial Refrigeration Division, Blue Star Limited.

Around 190 Delegates including Members from Agri & Food Processing Industries, Famer Producer Organization (FPO) & Academic Institutions from Tamil Nadu & Kerala participated in the seminar.

 
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