The Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), Tamil Nadu, is organising the first edition of CII Tamil Nadu Banana Festival 2012 – a unique exhibition-cum-conference on December 21 and 22, 2012 at Chennai Trade Centre, Nandambakkam, Chennai.
The event is supported by the Government of Tamil Nadu and institutes like the National Research Centre for Banana, Tamil Nadu Agricultural University and banana growers' associations.
Addressing a press conference in Chennai, Purushothaman Ravichandran, chairman, CII Tamil Nadu Banana Festival 2012 and senior director, Danfoss Industries Ltd, said, “The event will be the first step to promote and popularise different varieties of bananas from Tamil Nadu, their organised cultivation and exports, enable the creation of a strong brand equity for bananas grown in Tamil Nadu as ‘Tamil Nadu Bananas’ and foster creation of supply chain and cold storage facilities for the crop in the state.”
Under fruit crops in Tamil Nadu, banana occupies 39 per cent of the area and 79 per cent of the production, with an average productivity of 52 million tonnes per hectare (MT/ha). Tamil Nadu ranks first and is the largest banana producing state in India; it accounts for 28 per cent of the total bananas produced in the country.
As part of the festival, CII will organise a two-day exhibition - an educative, interactive platform showcasing banana-related equipment and innovative technologies including cold chain, besides a display of varieties of banana fruits.
The one-day conference held concurrently during the exhibition will deliberate on banana trade, latest technologies and innovative package of practices related to the crop, besides intensive debates on problems hampering the sector. The conference would witness the release of the feasibility report for developing an integrated cold chain for bananas in Tamil Nadu for adoption by the relevant authorities.
Thiru S Damodaran, minister for agriculture, Government of Tamil Nadu, will inaugurate the festival and release the feasibility report for developing an integrated cold chain for bananas in Tamil Nadu at Chennai Trade Centre, Chennai on December 21, 2012.
Sandeep Saxena, secretary and agriculture production commissioner, Department of Agriculture, Government of Tamil Nadu; Santhosh Babu, commissioner, Commissionerate of Horticulture and Plantation Crops, Government of Tamil Nadu; Anil Meshram, director, Agriculture Marketing and Agribusiness Directorate, Government of Tamil Nadu and leaders from industry would be present on the occasion.
B Thiagarajan, convenor, Agriculture and Food Processing Panel, CII Tamil Nadu and president, Blue Star Ltd, said that the event will provide a common platform for the stakeholders involved in the supply chain of bananas to share their best practices among others from the industry as well as help them in showcasing the products and technologies available in this sector.
The feasibility report was prepared with the objective to ascertain the techno-economic feasibility of setting up of an integrated cold chain for bananas in Tamil Nadu. The report proposed developing six modules of cold chain infrastructure in places like Erode, Coimbatore, Thoothukudi, Theni-Madurai, Trichy, Tiruvannamalai-Vellore, etc. Each of these modules will have a central pack house and multiple collection centres.
There were some benefits that were identified from the study favouring the setting up the cold chain was mainly reduction in waste or increase in saleable product at 15 per cent due to better storage, handling, less pest or disease attack right through delivery to customer.
Also an increase in overall price realisation of 10 per cent due to better quality of produce; increase in price for premium segmentation possible (the top 10 per cent of produce fetches a price 25 per cent higher than the normal price). It was also estimated that annual benefit for the state would be Rs 6,000 crore annually.
