Codex cell to help Bengal food exporters

Proposal has been places before the Centre

The West Bengal department of food processing industries and horticulture would soon be setting up a codex cell and has sent the proposal for the cell to the ministry of food processing industries of the government of India for approval, according to sources in the department.

The cell will help to maintain and up-to-date codex information, codex documents, codes of practices along with transferring the same information to food processing industries to enable them to adopt them to manufacture good quality product which can compete in global market.

The state had a robust agricultural production base but its food processing sector was still underdeveloped.

Only a few biscuit production units, and producers of pickles and pisciculture and marine products had achieved some level of competence.

West Bengal had a huge and booming industry producing sweets and 'dahi' from milk, but the industry was totally fragmented and had little or standardised quality or other systems.

Food safety issues had become crucial in global markets, the sources said.

The acceptability of Indian food in worl market had come to depend almost entirely on quality as every buyer was concerned about quality and not price.

Adherence to strictest quality standards would open up the doors for Indian food products and allow exporters to gain a toehold in major global markets particularly in the Asia Pacific region, west Asia, Europe and America.

"Food quality management is the prime issue in today's world," said sources.

The source claimed that the Bengal state government was talking to entrepreneurs to sensitise them on the issue of maintainance of the highest quality standards so that not a single consignment of any food product was rejected or cancelled.

At a recent seminar in the city, Vijay Sardana, the executive director of the Centre for International Trade in Agriculture & Agro-based Industries (CITA), had cautioned that the country could slip into becoming a net importer of food as the present import growth rate was far in excess of the export growth rate.

If the present growth trend persisted, India could become a net importer by 2009, he had warned.

The United States of America (USA) has turned into a net importer of food this year after a gap of 18 years and would definitely take steps to check growing imports, he had pointed out.

The Bengal state government had hinted at the plan to set up the cell at a recent workshop on 'Requirements of food safety, labelling, traceability & IPR issues for export development of agricultural and processed food products'.

The workshop was jointly organised by the Indian Chamber of Commerce (ICC) and Agricultural and Processed Food Products Export Development Authority.