Government Aims at Making India a Global Food Factory: Union Food Processing Minister

In a seminar organized by the Confederation of Indian Industry in partnership with Flanders Investment and Trade, Union Cabinet Minister of Food Processing, Harsimrat Kaur Badal shared her thoughts stating that the government is working to make India not only a global food factory but also a global food market. The seminar was attended by many eminent dignitaries including Belgium's King Phillippe and other Indian and Belgian leaders. "We think we are capable of becoming a global food market. For this, we need to adopt the best of technologies," noted the minister.

"On one side, we have a raw material base and on the other, we have a retail sector of $600 billion, which is set to treble by 2020. And 70 per cent of this 1.3 trillion dollar sector is food sub-sector. The demand for food is going to increase in India by 50 per cent over five years," she added. Although India is the largest producer of food, it manages to process only 10% of it which leads to wastage, she explained. It was also noted that with a rapid increase in population, land for food production is also shrinking. Food wastage is another area where government is directing its utmost attention.

Stressing that Belgium's advanced technology can be put to good use in India, the Minister invited the Belgian industry to come and "use Indian material and export finished products to other countries". She said that during the three-day World Food India 2017 event from November 3 in Delhi, close to $18 billion in investment was "either transacted or committed".

The seminar was on 'Belgian Innovative Contributions in Shaping India's Future as a Global Food Player'.

Inputs from IANS