Agriculture and horticulture being the bedrock of North-East’s economy, there is need for adoption of simple technologies at rural level for development of food processing sector in the region, opined experts at a seminar here today.
Wastage at supply chain and low production of certain potential horticulture products too need to be overcome if food processing industry is to grow in the region.
“Teaching a farmer modern technology to set up units serves no purpose. A modern plant cost around 10 crore and a marginal farmer can’t invest such amount for setting up food processing unit. So we need technologies which can be easily adopted by farmer, easily carried out at village level and rural level,” said Suresh Tiwari, an expert from college of horticulture, central agriculture university.
He added: “We always talk of costly technology and not of technology that can be adopted by farmers. We need simple technology for small value additions at rural level.”
He said the college plans to start an “exhibitory training” for farmers where they will be taught the primary processing of horticulture products and which “is gainful for them at that level.”
S Bhattacharjee, managing director of North Eastern Regional Agricultural Marketing Corporation Limited (NERAMAC), said, it is often felt in North-East that the volume of production to run a commercial unit is very less.
Citing the example of pineapple, he said the fruit is produced in large quantity in many parts of the region, but it is available only for two and half months. In other parts of the country, pineapple is available for almost 10 months. “Can’t the same can be done in North-East?” he said.
“If you want to build a economy on food processing, it is not that R&D is not available or technology is not available. Only thing is innovation and bringing the produce to the processing units is the need. And if we can do that, our food processing industry can do a great job,” said Bhattacharjee.
According to him, people are willing to invest, but there need to be sufficient production too to run commercial units.
“Now, it is not that people are not having the money to invest, people have money and the government schemes and incentives for horticulture and food processing sector are giving lot of support, but the only thing is to increase the productivity to run the production units,” he said.
