The Hindu Business Line : `Leave value-added food processing to MNCs'

THE West Bengal Minister in-charge of the Department of Food Processing Industries and Horticulture, Mr Sailen Sarkar, has advised small and medium-scale units in the food processing sector, to confine their operations up to semi-finished products, leaving the remaining value-added jobs for multinational companies.

These companies, in turn, will set up automatic plants for the manufacture of wide varieties of finished products to cater to the needs of domestic as well as export markets.

Speaking at a `buyers-sellers' meet on food processing and chemical products, at the 17th Industrial India Trade Fair here on Friday, organised by the Bengal National Chamber of Commerce & Industry, Mr Sarkar said that MNCs were not interested to set up units for semi-processed products because these were labour intensive.

Therefore, he prefers small-scale sector to produce semi-processed food products, and they should have forward linkage with MNCs. This would not only reduce harvesting cost but also would be beneficial for both small-scale units and MNCs.

The State's food processing department had taken initiatives to identify the critical gaps to integrate the value chain from cultivation to marketing. The most important step was creation of agri-export zones for five important crops, namely potato, mango, litchi, vegetables and pineapples. Food processing industries, coming up in agro export zones, were tied up with the farmers' co-operatives/farmers for the cultivation of desired quality raw materials as per the requirement of the industries. Steps were taken to strengthen the forward linkage by organising meetings between SSI units and MNCs. Recently, one such meeting was held at Siliguri with an MNC for sourcing intermediate products such as pineapple pulp and tomato puree.

Mr Sarkar said that although the State had a large agriculture base, the availability of right quality of raw material in sufficient quantity at a reasonable price over a longer period of time was still a major bottleneck for the development of food processing industry.

The current marketing chain comprised multiple layers of farmers to consumers. This long chain with several middlemen was responsible for multiple handling of the produce with no value-addition activities such as grading/sorting, packaging and cooking. Moreover, the weak linkage between food processing industries and growers was one of the key reasons for low productivity of desired quality product, resulting in uncertainty in availability of adequate raw materials at a reasonable price throughout the year.

He said that the processing units must ensure that high quality seeds, fertilisers, pesticides along with technical know how was provided to the growers in time.

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