Kerala - Thiruvananthapuram   

Food processing policy mooted

Photo: C. Ratheesh Kumar

DEVELOPMENT INITIATIVES: Union Minister of State for Food Processing Industries Subodh Kant Sahai (left) exchanges pleasantries with Industries Minister Elamaram Karim at a meeting organised by the Kerala Industrial Infrastructure Development Corporation (Kinfra) in Thiruvananthapuram on Thursday.

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Union Minister of State for Food Processing Subodh Kant Sahai has urged the State government to put in place a ‘Food Processing Policy’ that would directly link the farm sector and the sectors of agriculture processing and marketing.

Talking to the media here on Thursday, he said the country had achieved more than nine per cent economic growth in the recent years, but there was hardly any growth in the farm sector, which sustained more than 70 per cent of the population. The challenge before the country was to integrate the growth sectors with the struggling farm sector so that the overall growth would be equitable, its benefits going to the rural populace as well.

He said Kerala could set the model for other States in the country in this matter, because its farm sector was dominated by horticulture [in which case value-addition and marketing initiatives had a more tangible character]. Kerala had also gone quite some way in exploring and exploiting the possibilities in the food processing industry, though the immense potential in the area still remained largely untapped.

He said the Union Ministry of Food Processing would provide liberal incentives for setting up food processing parks and quality assurance labs, putting in place cold chains from the farms to the processing houses and ensuring efficient marketing of the value-added processed goods. Farm produces should become raw material for the industry. When this happens, the industry would itself invest heavily on better seeds, fertilizers and such inputs for farm production, making the farm sector vibrant. Mr. Sahai said the Union government’s vision was to ensure an investment of Rs.1 lakh crore in food processing by 2015.

He said the growth of the food processing industry in the country was a modest 6.3 per cent in 2004. It climbed to 13 per cent in 2007, much above the overall 9 per cent growth in the economy. The country should be able to sustain and build up on the momentum of the last three years in this sector to help tackle the ongoing farm crisis and make economic growth an equitable one.

Mr. Sahai said that the State government [with an understanding of the larger context of the strategy outlined by him] should facilitate higher investment in the farm sector by encouraging contract farming or cooperative farming. The need to encourage retail chains was also significant, though the [ideological] confusions in the matter had to be cleared.

He said he had discussed with the retail chain operators [the apprehensions with respect to the possible marginalisation of ordinary retail merchants with the arrival of retail chains] and told them to come up with a model that would remove all fears.

Mr. Sahai also said that the State government should reduce the value-added tax on processed farm products to help the food processing industry to establish itself. The tax rate should ideally be zero. It should not be more than four per cent in any case, he said. Industries Minister Elamaram Kareem was also present.

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