Develop economically-viable models for farmers: expert

Food security is becoming a major concern and farmers must be given economically viable models to produce processed food...

Food security is becoming a major concern and farmers must be given economically viable models to produce processed food,said Prof M J Modayil,member of Agriculture Scientists Recruitment Board. Prof Modayil was speaking at the inauguration of the Tailor-Made Training Programme on Post-Harvest Management and Value Addition of Horticulture and Plantation Crops at Central Institute of Post-Harvest Engineering and Technology in Ludhiana. Several NABARD officials from across the country are participating in the program.

Speaking on the occasion,Prof Modayil said development of technology alone would not help farmers and entrepreneurs. There was need to provide an economically viable production model. For this,scientists should look at what end product would they be producing through research and its viability in the market, he said,adding in the changing scenario,proactive research was required. Most of the highly successful companies are spending a large amount of money on research. We,as a country,need to look at what our neighbours are doing.

Emphasising that food security was becoming a major issue,Prof Modayil said wastage needed to be plugged through processing of food. About 30 per cent of our food gets wasted in transportation and storage. Though this can not be prevented completely,we can reduce the loss to a great extent. At present,our losses are as high as that of the African countries, he added.

Director,CIPHET,Dr R T Patil said while the food requirement would never decline,the way consumers eat food is changing with new technologies. He said to set up any industry,there were four major requirements. Raw material,market,easy to follow technology for industry and skills, he said,adding that for the food processing industry,all four were available in India.

Dr Patil said there was a lot of profitability in the food processing industry,which was the reason big houses,such as Reliance and Bharti were coming into this business.

CIPHET gives farewell to Dr K K Singh

The Central Institute of Post Harvest Engineering and Technology (CIPHET) gave a farewell to Dr K K Singh,Head,Food Grains and Oilseeds Processing Division (FG&OP) on his promotion as Assistant Director General (ADG) in Process Engineering at the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) headquarters in New Delhi.

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