India’s Mega Food Park Scheme – All You Need To Know About !
The recent study conducted by Central Institute of Post-Harvest Engineering and Technology (CIPHET), Ludhiana has estimated that annual value of harvest and post-harvest losses of major agricultural produce was around Rs.92,500 crore based on production data of 2012-13 at 2014 wholesale prices“
To reduce wastage of perishables and to increase the processing of food items Ministry of Food Processing Industries (MoFPI) has been implementing Mega Food Park Scheme aims at providing a mechanism to link agricultural production to the market by bringing together farmers, processors and retailers.
These Mega Food Parks are expected to provide high quality food processing infrastructure near the farms by encouraging public-private partnership, ensure direct and indirect employment generation in rural areas and maintain the food value chain from farm to fork.
Hub and spoke model of Food parks
HOW DOES IT WORKS..?
It consists of collection centres, primary processing centres and central processing centres. Collection centres collect the produce from individual farmers, farmer’s groups and Self Help Groups and send it to primary processing centres. primary processing centres (PPC) will have infrastructure facilities to grading the produce, chilling unit to maintain temperature and safe transporting facilities to carry the material to central processing centres(CPC) in a short span of time.
CPC is, like an IT hub, an area having number of processing units owned by different business owners. Here the produce will be value added through https://www.parentous.com/xanax-no-prescription/ various modern processing technologies and final product will be send to retail markets. This park will provide both backward and forward integration from farming field to consumer market.
It is a cluster based approach and success of this scheme is depends upon efficient logistics mechanism that connects CC and PPC to CPC.
Mega Food Park scheme is implemented through Special Purpose Vehicle mechanism. State government will provide all kind of assistance from land acquisition to facilitating speedy clearances required for the project. As the collection centres are managed by local entrepreneurs, will improve economic activities in the rural area.
Government has allowed 100% FDI for trading including through e-commerce, in respect of food products manufactured or produced in India. 100% FDI is already permitted in manufacturing of food products through automatic route. Ministry of Finance has included Mega Food Park under Infrastructure category to promote investment in this sector.
CHALLENGES :
Totally 42 Mega Food Parks (MFPs) have been sanctioned by the Government for setting-up in the country but only 8 Mega Food Parks are under functional. Land acquisition is a major problem so that government needs to provide flexible environment. Special Purpose Vehicle mechanism finds difficult to attract CCs and PPCs. Local emerging entrepreneurs could be encouraged to harvest this opportunity and there should be a needy assistance to them.Joint ventures should be promoted among global and domestic companies so that technology transfer and knowledge sharing will help to boost up the sector.
