Food processing Sector - Sunrise Sector but Challenges glare

In a move to attract huge investment in food processing sector and improve the farmer's income, the Union Ministry of Food Processing has planned a mega event of world Food India which was inaugurated by PM Modi on Friday. The ministry expects that the event would be a platform for the government to take necessary policy decisions and focus on key areas to improve the investment climate in the country.

The government has taken some key decisions in the past 3 years to facilitate the investors The steps taken have shown some results

# priority sector under Make in India: The government has considered Food processing as one of the major priority sectors under the make in India programme and the Nabard has set up special funds for small farmers and traders to set up units.

# 100 % FDI: The government has opened up the sector for foreign direct investment in the country and allowed the industries to sell the locally manufactured the products via e-commerce.

# Govt schemes: the govt has launched series of schemes such as the establishment of 42 mega food parks in the country, SAMPADA Yojana to improve cold chain facilities across the country.

# Ease of doing business: The govt has undertaken many reforms such as GST, E-NAM which had improved the country's ease of doing business rankings.

However, the sector faces some challenges.

Regulatory framework for quality standards: Currently FSSAI is the nodal agency to ensure the safety and standards of food manufactured in India.The Body has not harmonized some regulations with Codex and this has often led to disputes and ban on some products.

Lack of adequate infrastructure: Currently the country doesn't have sufficient cold chain facilities and there are not adequate quality testing laboratories for ensuring the quality of the food and there are no adequate recruitment of food safety officers.

Change of Mindset: Currently many people don't opt for processed food citing quality issues and think that processed foods are consumed by elite people.

Finally, the government hopes that the roundtable discussions with various CEOs and global industry heads would offer some solutions to the challenges so that the sector becomes a huge backbone for the farmer and create employment to many people as it is a sunrise sector.