We are over producing many crops with excessive consumption of water, especially in the north western plains, already facing water shortage, which in turn, in the future will cost to the future generations, Ashish Bahuguna, Chairman, Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) said. He emphasised that the focus of policymakers in the field of agriculture and food production should shift away from excessive productivity to sustain quality to enable India globalise its food and agriculture products on sustainable basis.
Delivering his key-note address at India Farm 2 Fork 2017 – 5th International Conference and Exhibition organised by PHD Chamber of Commerce and Industry in New Delhi, Bahuguna said that unnecessary obsession with productivity particularly for agriculture and food product is no longer amenable as continued focus on it would have adversarial environmental impact on agriculture, land and soil among others.
Therefore, now time has arrived that the focus of policymakers in the Ministry of Agriculture and other coordinating departments with it ought to be on sustained quality of agricultural and food items to help India attain its global integration in the field of food and agriculture as also help it prevent its soil and land degradation, further emphasised the former agriculture secretary, Bahuguna.
Accordingly, the food safety standards should also evolve to transform India’s food and agriculture with compliance with progressive food safety standards to promote all-round consumption, he said.
Speaking on the occasion, JP Meena, Secretary, Ministry of Food Processing Industries, however, in his inaugural remarks, felt that whereas large and medium sector industry in agriculture and food processing sector have been quite collaborating with linking themselves with farmers, the SME segment has somehow fallen behind to work directly with the farmers and lift their produce for optimum value addition.
Therefore, the SME segment needs to make certain amendments in their approach and come forward with a pro-active approach to directly work with the farmers well equipped with latest technologies to enable them optimise their production commercially, he added.
Meanwhile, Meena announced that the government would be coming out with two additional schemes to promote several mini mega food parks across the country to uplift the agri and food sector in which the subsidy element for setting up of agro food clusters in such parks would vary from Rs.5 crore to Rs.10 crore and urged the industry to take advantage of such schemes which would fall in public domain from next week onwards.