Govt. is working on ease of doing farming: Harsimrat Kaur Badal

Manishika Miglani 

“The Ministry of Food Processing Industries is working on the creation of 42 mega food parks and is focussing on policy reforms for ease of doing farming and food processing,” said Harsimrat Kaur Badal, Minister of Food Processing Industries at the 6th Cold Chain Summit organised by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) in association with the Ministry of Food Processing Industries, Ministry of Agriculture and National Center for Cold Chain Development (NCCD).

She also noted that “wastage of food worldwide is very high with 1.3 billion food being dumped annually”. This, according to her, is the result of lack of suitable cold chain, an issue which needs global attention.

The conference also highlighted “doubling of farmer’s income” as a top priority of the ministry by “linking them with more market and increasing their opportunity to sell more.”

According to Badal, the ministry will put in place a scheme for crop specific infrastructure which will allow the farmers to start their own food processing or cold chain transportation ventures.

The conference had Pawanexh Kohli, Chief Executive Officer and Chief Advisor, National Centre for Cold Chain Development talk about “cold chain being the backbone of the second green revolution and thus, the future of our country”.

The summit was also addressed by Anuradha Prasad, Joint Secretary, Ministry of Food Processing Industries, who shed light on the “necessity of farm gate infrastructure” as one of the focus areas of the government. While talking about creating an end-to-end cold chain infrastructure for farmers, she also divulged upon the ministry contemplating schemes to ease the business of the poultry industry as well.

The summit witnessed a special address by S.K. Pattanayak, Secretary, Ministry of Agriculture, who talked about ushering in more investments for the agriculture sector with the government coming up with schemes for post-harvest management and development, including cold chains.

Other noted speakers at the summit included J P Meena, Additional Secretary, MoFPI; T. Nanda Kumar, Former Chairman National Dairy Development Board (NDDB); Chandrajit Banerjee, Director General, Confederation of Indian Industry; Ravneet Singh Khurana, Deputy Commissioner, GST, Ministry of Finance; and P. Ravichandran, Danfoss Industries P Ltd.