Seminar at India Pavilion in Expo2020 Dubai showcases India’s export potential of Millets and ways to upscale the value chain
As part of the ongoing ‘Food, Agriculture and Livelihood’ fortnight, the India Pavilion at EXPO2020 hosted a seminar – ‘India: Millets production and upscaling value chain’ on 18th Feb. Senior government officials and sector experts deliberated on opportunities for Indian industry players producing and processing millets, to enhance the export potential of the country during the session.
Speaking at the session, Dr Abhilaksh Likhi, Additional Secretary, Ministry of Agriculture & Farmers Welfare said, “We urge the startups and Farmer Producer Organizations (FPOs) to not only help in upscaling millets’ value chain, connecting to domestic and international markets but also to creating an inclusive framework where we take producing communities along.”
Kuntal Sensarma, Economic Advisor, Ministry of Food Processing Industries (MoFPI), talked about the policy incentives in this sector and said, “Two of our suggestions to the Union Ministry of Finance for this year’s budget have been accepted to strengthen the sector and create necessary policy environment. One was in the context of the International Year of Millets for 2023 based on major programmatic interventions and the other one on the Production Linked Incentive (PLI) scheme and formalization of micro-enterprises.”
Deliberating on upscaling the value chain of millets, Dr. C Anandharamkrishnan, Director, NIFTEM shared, “There is a need to formalize the unorganized food processing system by providing the FPOs, SHGs and co-operatives with technical support, credit linkages and ensuring adequate storage capacity to avoid food wastage.”