The Central Food & Technological Research Institute (CFTRI) will play an important role in the country’s shift of focus from hunger to nutrition as India prepares itself to introduce the right to food law, outlined Science and Technology Minister of State Prithviraj Chavan here recently.
He was delivering the Diamond Jubilee address of the premier food laboratory in Mysore. India has a healthy economic growth rate of 8.5 per cent with resources, money and leadership available for science and while the country marches ahead to become a super power, the pressure will be on matching food production.
With the likely target of foodgrain production growing to 235 million tonnes and with food distribution problems in the country, premier institutions like the CFTRI will play a key role in saving what is likely to be wasted, he said.
The Fundamental Right to Food once introduced will ensure that no one will go hungry but the shift will be from hunger to nutrition. “The future of food science is through a multi-disciplinary approach and it is only through collaboration between premier institutions and the food sector and through the development of newer technologies that we will be able to chart out the course of our future,” Chavan said.
The minister appreciated the services of CFTRI in the area of food sciences hailing it as the temple of modern India that connects directly with the society and contributes greatly to the building of science in the country.
CSIR Director General Samir K. Brahmachari detailed the 2022 vision of CSIR in attaining global leadership in traditional niche areas. The two-way growth is through conservation of resources and scientific leadership, he said.
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Lauding CFTRI for its services, he said nearly $1.3 billion worth of food products are being manufactured today using the technology provided by the premier food institute. He said nutra geonomics would be the future as nutrition in food would replace drugs and chemicals for disease prevention.
MP and CFTRI Research Council Chairman M S Swaminathan highlighted the importance of maternal and post-natal nutrition and said it was important to reach the child of the age group of one to two years as nearly 45 percent of children in this age group were undernourished in spite of having programmes as it was difficult to reach out to the child through its mother.
He said food institutions such as CFTRI will play a major role as the need for food processing and consumption of processed food will increase as the target for the production of fruits and vegetables is expected to reach 300 million tonnes soon.
“We cannot depend on import of food products as price volatility is the important cause of hunger,” he said and highlighted the need for food self-sufficiency through production and preservation.CFTRI is India’s premier laboratory in the area of food sciences and was started in 1950 in Mysore. It is celebrating its diamond jubilee this year.