Tamil Nadu   

“States should have own agri-business plan”

— Photo: V. Ganesan

TAKING A CLOSER LOOK: Union Minister for Food Processing Industries Subodh Kant Sahai (second from left), at an exhibition organised by FICCI in Chennai on Friday. Rafeeque Ahmed, chairman of the Tamil Nadu State Council of FICCI (left), is in the picture. .

CHENNAI: Every State should have an agri-business plan and the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) should involve itself in preparing it, Union Minister of State for Food Processing Industries Subodh Kant Sahai said here on Friday.

Inaugurating a two-day international conference on agri-business and food processing, sponsored by FICCI, he said at present agriculture was not viable. There were disturbing reports that area under agriculture was on the decline with farmers giving up their traditional occupation.

The trend had to be arrested by increasing farmers’ income. The aim should be to double the agriculture growth rate to 4 per cent. He said the double digit economic growth rate would be of no consequence unless there was simultaneous growth in agriculture. To achieve improved growth rate, the Centre had dedicated the 11th Five Year Plan to agriculture and allotted Rs 25,000 crore for the farm sector.

Regretting there were misconceptions about contract and cluster farming, he said by adopting these methods, agriculture could be made profitable.

As a majority of farmers were illiterate, they could be educated about modern farming methods by corporate bodies. This, in turn, would improve agricultural productivity and farmers’ income.

Stating there was good potential for the food processing industry, the Minister said value-added agriculture products would improve the income of farmers. The State should support industries by reducing tax on value-added products.

The Centre on its part had been providing tax concessions and there should be matching concessions from the States.

Chief programme coordinator of the European Union Trade and Investment Development Programme D. Kebschull said the only way to improve the growth rate of agriculture to 4 per cent was by promoting food processing industries.

At present, only one per cent of agriculture produce was being converted into value-added products, which was very low compared to the international level. There should be more foreign investment in food processing industries and corporate bodies should have tie-up with foreign industries for setting up units here.

Chairman of the Tamil Nadu State Council of FICCI M. Rafeeque Ahmed said absence of an integrated channel to link “farm to fork” had prevented transfer of the desired package of practices, infrastructure and technology to the farmer, thus adversely affecting availability of quality farm produce suitable for processing to the industry. This had led not only to lost opportunities in the food processing sector but also loss of benefits to farmers.

Conference chairman Jitendra Goenka said it was imperative that the government took up proactive role in catalysing private initiatives through a framework that would create and sustain productive and mutually rewarding linkages between farmers and the corporate sector.

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