Food growers can be processors too

A higher level of processing would generate additional income for farmers and off-farm employment and entrepreneurship opportunities for rural people

The food-processing industry, despite impressive growth over the past few years, has failed to effectively serve its prime objectives of bolstering farmers’ incomes and curtailing wastage of farm produce. While the gains from the value-addition of agricultural products are accruing largely to the industry rather than the farmers, the post-harvest losses of farm output continue to be rather high — up to 40 per cent in some perishable items. In monetary terms, these losses are assessed at Rs 60,000-80,000 crore annually.

This can be attributed to numerous reasons, such as inept post-harvest handling, transportation, storage, and marketing the produce; a low