At the inaugural session of one-day national seminar on food processing and reducing wastage, B S Dhillon, Vice-Chancellor of Punjab Agricultural University, said that “Punjab as a state needs special treatment”. Dhillon stressed the fact that “there is immense pressure on water and soil resources of the state”. “Given the traditional wheat and paddy cycle followed by state producing food for the entire nation, Punjab needs special treatment. The production of wheat and paddy has increased manifold and water table is going down. It is possible but difficult to increase production further and the only alternative is diversification and food processing for welfare of farmers,” he said. Almost 400 delegates from India took part in the seminar and Union Minister for Food Processing Harsimrat Kaur Badal was also present for the inaugural session. Dhillon said, “Districts of Punjab like Gurdaspur, Muktsar and Sangrur are producing milk in huge quantities but still 80% of our milk handling and packaging is unorganised. We need a strong network of milk collection and processing at cluster level so that milk is not wasted.” He talked about processing and food wastage of fruits, vegetables and other crops. “The two kinnow processing plants at Abohar and Hoshiarpur are processing 170 tonnes of kinnow per annum but it is still less. There are few packaging and processing facilities which not only lead to wastage of perishable goods but also nutritional losses,” he said. The V-C said that honey production was also unorganised in major parts of the country. “The taxation system is affecting the wheat processing. Import duties on edible oil too need to be re-looked into. Refrigerated vans, food testing labs need to crop up at cluster level for farmers,” he added. He said that even in domestic market at present “imported food brands are given preference over our own brands which needs to be checked”. “Transportation subsidies are needed for farmers so that farmers can carry their produce to processing units,” he said. Dhillon said that a proposal had been submitted for opening six new skill development centres for farmers in the field of food processing training.
