India processes less than 5 per cent of its agricultural produce,says NABI official

India processes less than 5 per cent of its agricultural produce. Depending upon the crop,10-30 per cent of the produce faces losses due to poor storage facilities, said Dr Rakesh Tuli,Executive Director of National Agri-Food Biotechnology Institute here Monday.

India processes less than 5 per cent of its agricultural produce. Depending upon the crop,10-30 per cent of the produce faces losses due to poor storage facilities, said Dr Rakesh Tuli,Executive Director of National Agri-Food Biotechnology Institute (NABI) here Monday.

In his welcome address at the two-day strategic meet on Vision and partnerships for innovations in agri-food research being held at NABI transit campus in Industrial Area,Phase VIII,Mohali,Dr Tuli said,A huge amount of biomass and agri-waste left on the farms needs to be used for developing high value products,molecules and energy. India is short of its goals of meeting the challenges of malnutrition and under-nutrition. It needs improved seed-based approaches to achieving dietary and nutritional requirements and to match globally competitive standards of food processing industry.

Punjab Chief Secretary SC Agrawal inaugurated the meet,wherein scores of researchers in the field of agriculture and food biotechnology began deliberating to identify the areas of priority research for NABI.

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In his inaugural speech,Agrawal underlined the need of a strategic road map for accelerating the leadership of NABI in transforming agriculture in the country.

He said NABI has been identified by the Planning Commission of India to develop technologies for converting farm waste,byproducts of food processing industry and seasonal farm surplus into value added products. Converting waste into a resource for generating wealth is an important challenge globally, he felt.

Secretary,Department of Science and Technology,Punjab,Vishwajeet Khanna threw light on the initiative of the state government in the development of Knowledge City in Mohali. He said with the coming up of national institutes of excellence in different fields,Punjabs present image of an agrarian state would soon be transferred into that of knowledge hub,which till now was to the credit of Bangalore,Hyderabad and Chennai.

Director General,National Research Council of Canada,Plant Biotechnology Institute,Saskatoon,Jerome Konecsni deliberated on the knowledge cluster at Saskatoon and gave detailed account of how Saskatoon alone enabled Canada to become world leader in export of mustard and several other seeds and agriculture products.

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Former chairman,Protection of Plant Varieties and Farmers Rights Authority,New Delhi,Dr S Nagarajan,delivered speech on opportunities and challenges for research in agri-food sector.

In his thanksgiving speech,Advisor,Union Department of Biotechnology,Dr Rajesh Kapur said the partnership and collaboration of Centre with Punjab has yielded results with the development of Agri-food cluster in Mohali.

The cluster of institutes to be set up includes a world-class institute for competitive research and innovations in the area of agriculture biotechnology,food processing and nutritional sciences called NABI. The second major component of the cluster will be an institute called Bioprocessing Unit (BPU) for translational research. It will function in public private partnership mode to provide bioprocessing solutions to industry. It will have facilities for bench level optimization,pilot plants and min plants of interest to agri-food processing industry.

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India processes less than 5 per cent of its agricultural produce,says NABI official

India processes less than 5 per cent of its agricultural produce. Depending upon the crop,10-30 per cent of the produce faces losses due to poor storage facilities, said Dr Rakesh Tuli,Executive Director of National Agri-Food Biotechnology Institute here Monday.

India processes less than 5 per cent of its agricultural produce. Depending upon the crop,10-30 per cent of the produce faces losses due to poor storage facilities, said Dr Rakesh Tuli,Executive Director of National Agri-Food Biotechnology Institute here Monday.