Karnataka - Mysore   

Immense potential seen in value addition to food

Staff Correspondent

Food scientists' association plans series of workshops in metros

MYSORE: The Association of Food Scientists and Technologists (India), Central Food Technology and Research Institute (CFTRI) campus, Mysore, is organising "Food Plus 2005", a multi-event programme envisaging workshop series focused on value addition to foods at various centres of the country in September-December 2005.

According to a press statement from association secretary G.C.P. Rangarao, the subject had been taken up as a focal theme in view of the huge potential for value addition of food to improve socio-economic conditions of the deprived sections of society.

The workshop series, organised in association with CFTRI and Defence Food Research Laboratory, will begin with the inaugural event "Frontier technologies of food packaging" to be held at India Habitat Centre, New Delhi, on September 17.

The concluding workshop on "Process engineering and product innovation" will be held at the National Institute of Mental Health and Neuro Sciences (NIMHANS) Convention Centre, Bangalore, on December 9 and 10. The concluding workshop will coincide with "ICFOST-Food Plus Expo 2005", a unique tech-focus exhibition on food processing and packaging to be held in Bangalore.

Between the inaugural event in New Delhi and the concluding workshop in Bangalore, the multi-event programme will feature a workshop on "Value addition to fruits and vegetables" in Hyderabad on October 1, workshop on "Value addition to cereals" in Mumbai on October 22 and a workshop on "Value addition" in Kolkata on November 5.

The workshops will focus on opportunities to value addition, frontier areas of processing technologies and their availability and applicability, quality issues, especially in the context of globalisation, policy matters and marketing strategies.

The deliberations are expected to result in a set of action-oriented recommendations for adoption in order to evolve distinct route maps to attain substantial value addition to agro-food resources in the coming years, Mr. Rangarao said.

Dwelling upon the relevance of the workshop series, Mr. Rangarao said India was known to be a country beset with food shortages not long ago. Thanks to "green revolution", India has attained self-sufficiency in food with sectoral surpluses emerging in production. "With the growth of the economy, a shift is being seen in the food basket from consumption of cereals to a more varied and nutritious diet of fruit and vegetables, milk, fish, meat and poultry products. These changes have brought in their wake the imperatives of an emerging sector of Food Processing industries," he said.

Though yields and per capita consumption patterns expected to improve, moving from subsistence levels of production to a marketable stage, pockets of surpluses have come into the food sector, leading to wastage. Surpluses have led to localised marketing difficulties and at times a fall in prices, with consequent adverse impacts on farmer incomes, Mr. Rangarao said.

"Although it is known that food processing is an important step in value addition to the food chain, we are far behind the developed countries. Even compared to countries like the Philippines and China, where value addition is 45 per cent and 23 per cent respectively, we lag behind with a meagre 7 per cent in value addition," he said.

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