India has an agro-climate zone and provides a fertile ground which highly support the food processing industry here. The fertile grounds are edible for various plant-based edibles too. According to experts it is noted that the food processing industry is the 5th largest sector of the country’s economy and in turn spoke about the various challenges being faced by the employment intensive industry. These topics were spoken at the PHDCCI (Doctor of Philosophy, Chamber of commerce and industry).
According to the former President and mentor MSME Mentoring and Guidance center, PHDCCI, Anil Khaitam, “The contribution of agriculture towards GDP is far low as compared to the number of people involved in it. Food processing is the fifth largest sector of the country’s economy and contributes 13 per cent to our annual GDP.”
The PHDCCI Secretary General Saurabh Sanyal threw light upon how the chambers were working with the government and non-government organizations in helping to assist the food processing industries in mentoring, technological upgradation and financing.
Sanyal noted, the biggest challenges facing the sector include inability of entrepreneurs to access credit, high cost of institutional credit, lack of access to modern technologies, inability to integrate with the food supply chain and compliance with health and safety standards.
According to HP Kumar, PHDCCI advisor and former CMD of NSIC believes that India’s agricultural production base is reasonably strong and the agricultural waste is sizeable. He also added, “The food processing industry in India is a sunrise sector changing the trend from sustenance to market-oriented that has gained prominence in recent years.”
Principal Secretary, Horticulture and Food Processing Department B L Meena said UP has a tremendous potential in the food processing sector and added that the state government had a lot to offer to investors in this segment.
Earlier, in his keynote address, UP Agriculture Production Commissioner Alok Sinha said that in order to double the income of farmers in UP, it was imperative to ensure value addition to their agriculture produce and that will come only from boosting the food processing sector in the state, the press note added.
NEWS REPORTED BY:
VRIDHI BHAGNARI.
