It was inaugurated by Jagadish Prasad Meena, secretary, Ministry of Food Processing Industries (MoFPI), Government of India, and Bijaya Kumar Behera, economic advisor, MoFPI.
K Parasuraman, Member of Parliament (MP) from Thanjavur constituency was the guest of honour. C Anandharamakrishnan, director, IIFPT, also presided over the inaugural session.
In his inaugural address, Meena highlighted that the bumper production and diversification of agriculture had brought in new challenges for everybody in view of the large-scale food wastage and seasonal and regional demand and supply issues of many commodities.
He also stated that the food processing sector in India had a dualistic structure. The unorganised segment dominated in numbers (about 25,00,000 in 2015-16) of small enterprises and workers, but the organised segment (about 40,000) dominated in terms of value of the output and investment.
“The percentage share of the organised/registered food processors is hardly 1.5 per cent of the total food processors,” Meena said.
“The first-tier technology should target the unorganised sector, which can be encouraged to concentrate on primary processing and provide strong supply link to the high-end secondary and tertiary processing,” he added.
“The second tier should deal with the sophistication of secondary and tertiary processing of high-value products and enable the industry to compete and stand shoulder to shoulder with world food processing industries,” Meena said.
He added, “Seventy-five per cent of our nation’s export basket of food produce consists of fresh fruits and vegetables and unprocessed items, and processed products account for only 25 per cent.”
Meena also appreciated the continued efforts made by IIFPT in the fields of research and food processing and extended the ministry’s support towards achieving the vision of IIFPT to become an institute of national eminence.
He concluded his inaugural address by sharing glimpses of the successful conduct of World Food India 2017, which subsequently promoted investment intent of $14 billion, which has been expressed through Memorandums of Understanding (MoUs) by country/worldwide companies.
Parasuraman, in his special address, stated that food was an important aspect of leading a healthy life, and IIFPT had been doing excellent work in developing and providing technologies that served the same purpose.
He pointed out that India, with a population of 1.3 billion, had its agricultural sector grow at a rate 4.9 per cent per year, whereas the food processing sector grew at eight per cent, which clearly established the importance of the food processing sector.
The Thanjavur MP congratulated IIFPT for its work on food processing and organising an international level conference on the same.
Behera, in his special address, said, “Accessibility, applicability and upscalability define the success of any technology.”
He pointed out that research in the sector of food processing should focus more on the benefits of marginal farmers and the unorganised sector.
The economic advisor to the country’s apex food regulator established that focus should be given on predictive research that studies on the effect of technology on its associated stakeholders. He also mentioned that focus should be on food waste residues rather than processing residues.
C Ananadharamakrishnan, in his opening remarks, expressed his gratitude to the dignitaries on and off the dais and briefed the journey of the institute.
The success of the Mission Onion Programme has supported in the livelihoods of farmers of that region. With the efforts of the farmer producer company and the institute, the farmers have planned to export their produce to Tesco, London.
The Mission Coconut Programme started with the objective of supporting the coconut growers and has led to the development of gadgets; a neera tapping machine that reduces the drudgery and increases their income with the production of value-added products; coconut chips infused with curcumin and vitamin A, crystallised neera, etc.
He also briefed about the institute’s mission mode programme on tomato, that has planned to come out with technologies to reduce the wastage and thereby support the tomato-growing farmers.
He concluded his address stating that this conference aimed to bring the bright minds of the food processing sector together for discussions on the current issues with that the sector faces with this industry–academia interface and drive out some suggestions and submit a detailed report to the ministry for suggestions on implementation.
Earlier, the conference souvenir was released by the MoFPI secretary. During the course of event, transfer of new technologies to farmers and FPOs and MoUs with leading food industries took place.
The conference featured eight technical sessions on diversified areas of food processing. Over nine overseas speakers, 77 Indian speakers, 18 food industry talks, 30 series lectures, two panel discussions, eight student presentation, 605 poster presentation and 721 abstract publications took place.
Amid release of new technologies, an expo of successful entrepreneurs groomed by IIFPT were also the part of the conference.
A total of 1,800 registered participants attended the conference, including delegates from industry, academia, research scholars and students from across the country.
In the rapidly-growing scenario of food processing sector and a conducive policy environment, the conference builds a strong platform for knowledge-sharing and meaningful delegation among the industry, academia, researchers and farmers which would potentially impact the food sector growth to a newer height.
IIFPT is a premier national institute working under the administrative control of MoFPI.
Besides delivering research and education in food processing, the institute has been incubating farmers, entrepreneurs and aspiring youth for prospective food business ventures, considering this importance and promotion of food processing among farmers, budding entrepreneurs and researchers.
