Agro industry to see infra facelift in Gujarat

Agriculture and allied industry in Gujarat is set to witness a make over in infrastructure as well as its competitive strength with industry captains and government putting special emphasize on developing strong supply chain for agro-industry. "Gujarat is front runner in production of several cash crops including castor, cumin and cotton. We need to focus on developing infrastructure for agriculture supplies and storage so as to benefit farmers as well as industries," said Dileep Sanghani, minister of state for agriculture, government of Gujarat. Sanghani further informed that the state was preparing an agro-industry policy focusing infrastructure and improvement in supply mechanism. “A policy will soon be announced on encouraging infrastructure development for agro-industry in state," Sanghani told reporters on the sidelines of a seminar, ‘Agribusiness – Opportunities and Challenges’ at Ahmedabad. As per the statistics provided by the government officials, the state has 65 per cent of cultivable area and the state produces cash crops like castor, potato and cumin with highest productivity. Further, the state contributes over 30 per cent to the country’s total cotton production. Commenting on the contract farming and potato production in the state, KS Narayanan, managing director, McCain Foods India, informed that the state is one of the isolated places in the country where special quality of potato is grown. "We require larger potato for our standard quality of French fries. We have more than 2500 farmers associated with us under contract farming. We are looking at sourcing other commodities also from the state," said Narayanan. McCain also exports its finished products to 18 countries including Singapore, Taiwan, China and several countries in South East Asia and Middle East. Speaking about the state of agro-industries in India, S Dave, director, Agricultural and Processed Food Products Export Development Authority (APEDA) informed that the industry is still developing. The government is planning to set up cold chain corridor across western, southern and eastern regions of the country. As a part of this initiative, we will promote export via sea port or air port and develop cold storages there. We are working with backward integration by developing hinterland to ensure supply chain in place," Dave said. For western region Gujarat & Rajasthan are selected, while southern region will have Karnataka, Kerala and Tamil Nadu as destination states and eastern region includes West Bengal, Bihar and Jharkhand. "The government will encourage private participants, while at some places we may jointly work with private players," told Dave who was in town to attend the seminar. Dave further informed that India exports roughly around $ 16 billion worth of agriculture produces. "Last year we saw almost stagnant growth due to global economic weakness, but this year we see around 10 per cent growth in exports of agro-produces," he said.