The Indian processed food sector, which is growing at 18% per annum, has huge potential to create revolution in employment and revenue generation in rural India, provided there are institutional mechanisms to empower farmers and create adequate post harvest infrastructure, said PI Suvrathan, secretary, Union ministry of food processing industries.
Delivering the inaugural address at the two-day conference on `Driving the Next Agri Revolution’, organised as part of Foodpro 2007, being organised by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) here on Monday, Suvrathan said that though the annual growth of agriculture sector is a dismal 2%, the growth rate of the processed food industry increased from 8% in 2004 to 18% in 2006. This rapid growth is equivalent to that of the revolution witnessed by the telecom industry, which added 200 million mobile phones from 4 millions just in four years. However, the potential unleashed by the processed food industry in terms of employment and revenue generation in rural India is yet to be widely known.
According to him, quite silently the supply chain and post harvest infrastructure of southern districts of Tamil Nadu and many parts of Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Madhya Pradesh are getting effectively streamlined with the setting up of modern pack houses, automated grading systems and cold stores by farmers.
The top priority of the government is to create market interfaces to inform the 300 million-odd farming community the requirements of consumers in about 60 Indian towns with high purchasing power and a population of over 10 lakhs.
The bigger challenge, however, is to find ways as to how to organise farmers who may not have any idea about supply chain management and how to create institutional mechanisms that would empower farmers. For instance, opportunities given to farmers to run post-harvest facilities all by themselves in a professional way will empower them, as farmers can hold on to their harvest more than 24 hours and have a say in fixing price for their produce. The secretary pointed out that Rs 50,000 crore is the estimated annual physical and value loss the farmers occur due to the lack of post harvest infrastructure.
In his special address, M F Farooqui, industry secretary of Tamil Nadu, said the drivers of next generation agriculture revolution are enhanced productivity, better post harvest infrastructure and massive value addition, which also are the pre-conditions for the agriculture sector to grow beyond 4%.
In his theme address, Sumant Sinha, chairman, Foodpro 2007 & CEO, Aditya Birla Retail Limited said that hardly 2% of fruits and vegetables grown in India are processed as against 80% in the US. India’s share in international food trade is still as low as 1.5% and the rate of value addition to foods by processing is just 8%.