International Conference on Recent Advances in Food Processing Technology (iCRAFPT) got underway today at Indian Institute of Food Processing Technology, Thanjavur in Tamilnadu. The conference was inaugurated by Sh. Jagadish Prasad Meena, Secretary, MoFPI, Sh. Bijaya Kumar Behera, Economic Advisor, MoFPI and was later joined by the Guest of Honour Sh. K. Parasuraman, Member of Parliament, from Thanjavur Constituency. Dr. C. Anandharamakrishnan, Director IIFPT also presided over the inaugural session.
The Secretary, MoFPI in his inaugural address highlighted that the bumper production and diversification of agriculture has brought in new challenges for everybody in view of the large scale food wastage on one hand and seasonal & regional demand & there supply issues of many commodities. He alslarge-scaleod processing sector in India has a dualistic structure. The unorganised segment dominates in numbers (about 25,00,000 in 2015-16) of small enterprises and workers, but the organised segment (about 40,000) dominates in terms of value of the output and investment. The percentage share of the organised/registered food processors are hardly 1.5 percent of the total food processors. The first tier technology should target the unorganized sector who can be encouraged to concentrate on primary processing and provide strong supply link to the high-end secondary and tertiary processing. The second tier should deal with sophistication of secondary and tertiary processing of high value products and enable industry to compete and stand up shoulder to shoulder with world food processing industries. He also quoted, our nation’s export basket of food produces contains 75% of the fresh F&V and unprocessed item and only 25% of processed products.
He also appreciated the continued efforts made by IIFPT in the field of research and food processing and extended Ministry’s support towards achieving the vision of the IIFPT to become an institute of national eminence. He concluded his inaugural address by sharing glimpses of successful conduct of World Food India 2017 that subsequently promoted investment intent of US$14 billion has been expressed through MoUs by country/world-wide companies.
The Hon’ble Member of the Parliament of Thanjavur constituency in his special address stated that food is an important aspect of leading a healthy life, and IIFPT has been doing an excellent work in developing and providing technologies that serve the same purpose. He pointed out that India, with a population of 1.3 billion has its agricultural sector grow at a rate 4.9% per year, whereas the food processing sector grew at 8% which clearly establishes the importance of the food processing sector. He further congratulated IIFPT for its work on food processing and organising an international level conference on the same.
Shri Bijaya Kumar Behera in his Special address has quoted that AccFood
essibility, 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 unorganized sector. He established that focus should be given on predictive research that studies on the effect of technology on its associated stakeholders. He mentioned that focus should be on food waste residue rather than processing residues.
Dr. C. Ananadharamakrishnan in his opening remarks expressed his gratitude to the dignitaries on and off the dias and briefed the journey of the institute. The success of the mission onion programme has supported in the livelihood of farmers of that region. With 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 objective to support the coconut growers and has led to development of gadgets; neera tapping machine that reduces the drudgery and increases their income with production of value added products; Coconut chips infused with curcumin and vitamin A, crystallized Neera etc. He also briefed about the institute mission mode programme on tomato, that has planned to come out with technologies to reduce the wastage and thereby supporting the tomato growing farmers. He concluded his address stating that this conference aims 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 Hon’ble Secretary, MoFPI. 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 09 overseas speakers, 77 Indian speakers, 18 food industry talks, 30 series lectures, 02 panel discussions, 08 student presentation, 605 poster presentation and 721 Abstract Publication 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 1800 registered participants attended conference including; delegates from industry, academia, research scholars and students from across the country. In the rapidly growing scenario of food processing sector and 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.
The Indian Institute of Food Processing Technology (IIFPT), a premier national Institute working under the administrative control of Ministry of Food Processing Industries (MoFPI), Government of India functioning from its headquarters in Thanjavur, Tamil Nadu. 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 the farmers, budding entrepreneurs and researchers. The institute has been organizing an International Conference on Recent Advances in Food Processing Technology (iCRAFPT) during 17th to 19thAugust 2018 with the theme of Doubling farmers’ income through food processing.
