In its effort to negate the irony of being among top States producing quality vegetables and fruits and home of poorest horticulture farmers at the same time, Industry Department is out to project food processing in a big way.
Two-day seminar-cum-symposium starting from April 23 on the vast topic is aimed to deal with issues in the field of food processing in the State besides, bringing stakeholders starting from investors, researchers and those active in Jharkhand on a single platform.
The symposium--'Advantage Jharkhand'-- has identified seven topics as drivers of growth as far as food processing in the State is concerned. This include vegetable processing, dairy, organic farming, spices, minor forest produces and fishery where lot of scope is available for both the producers and investors.
"Despite having advantage in producing fruits and green vegetables and several other horticulture items of high quality, Jharkhand is not at all visible on the food map of the country thus far. It is because people from outside are not aware about the potential available here and also the producers here who do not know much about market available outside. The symposium is in some way to formalise the whole system of trade between Jharkhand and other States," Industry Secretary Himani Pandey told The Pioneer while revealing the purpose of the entire exercise.
Areas such as Khunti, Mandar, Bero, parts of Hazaribagh, Ramgarh, Chatra, Palamu and pockets of Santhal Pargana are the known hub of fresh vegetables. Nevertheless, unavailability of market at local level, lack of access to value addition chains and exploitative nature of middlemen often incur losses to the growers. In the seasons, vegetable farmers get diminishing return on perishable items like tomato, peas, cauliflowers, capsicum and other green vegetable back home despite having great demand in the metros and other parts of the country.
"We have also invited 7-8 States such as Karnataka, Bihar, Maharashtra, Chhattisgarh and Meghalaya. These States have worked very well in the field of food processing and adding value to raw farm produces," said Md Niyaz, a consultant working to make the organisation a success.
This apart, array of investors have also been towed to the programme which would help in providing first hand information about the State and potential available here. It is likely that around 10 MoUs would also be inked during the symposium paving way for investment ranging crores of rupees.
"The State has been known just as a mineral destination and not as a warehouse of fresh vegetable produces and also forest produces. This has led to economic disadvantage among tribal to a great extent. Still, they are practicing commodity exchange system which fetch penny to them against valuable forest items like chiraungi, amla, turmeric and other medicinal produces. This effort is to profile Jharkhand as a fruitful destination for investors who often for the wrong reasons do not want to come here," added Niyaz.
The conclave is also expected to provide fillip to under construction 'Mega Food Park' in the State. "About 70-80 per cent of work has been completed. We have told the company to complete the rest work on time so that common facility can be there at one place. The symposium can become an opportunity to project the Mega Food Park in front of the investors," said Himani Pandey.