In view of increase in agriculture production in Odisha, the Government now intends to focus on agri business and then on agri processing, said Agriculture Production Commissioner Gagan Kumar Dhal here on Thursday.
Inaugurating a two-day “TOP Expo and Summit” organised by the Indian Chamber of Commerce (ICC) in association with Agriculture and Farmer’s Empowerment Department at the Hotel Swosti Premium here, Dhal said, “Our farmers are very good on adopting new technologies and other things. But now we have to move on from agriculture to agri business. It requires lots of knowledge, from market knowledge to accounting and expenditure knowledge and so on.”
Informing that Odisha produces 3 lakh metric tonne of onion every year, Dhal said a Maharastra kind of bamboo stick-based storage facility would be set up in Balangir and Nuapada, the two major onion producer districts of the State.
Similarly, with sizeable contribution from Keonjhar, Sundargarh and Sambalpur, the State produces 13-14 lakh metric tonne of tomato every year. While the requirement of the state is only 3 lakh tonne, there is huge scope for tomato processing. “25 years back, we had set up a tomato processing unit at investment of Rs 8 crore at Keonjhar disctrict. That is now defunct. Major problem of failure of this unit is non availability of processing quality tomato. We have to focus more on to produce processing quality tomato in the State than traditional quality,” he said.
Regarding potato output, Dhal said now Odisha produces 3 lakh tonnes of potato every year against a very high requirement. “ Under the Potato Mission, the State has added 15,000 more hectares of land to potato cultivation during last 3-4 years. Potato requires modern kind of cold storage facility. We invite investors to set up cold storage in Odisha and avail good amount of subsidy. Dhal added.
Agriculture and Farmers’ Empowerment Secretary Dr Saurabh Garg said, “Odisha produces onion only in Ravi season. We have to focus on how to increase onion production at Kharif season also.”
The Union Government’s Food Processing Department Joint Secretary Reema Prakash highlighted about the Green Mission. Idco Chairman Sanjay Singh and Horticulture Director Dr B Upadhaya spoke.
At the outset, ICC Odisha State Council chairman MC Thomas delivered welcome address. The programme came to an end with a vote of thanks.