The Union Minister for Food Processing Industries Harsimrat Kaur Badal has urged researchers working in the food processing sector to broaden their areas activity to ensure that their labour benefited the farmers by providing value addition to the agricultural produce.
Speaking after renaming the Indian Institute of Crop Processing Technology as Indian Institute of Food Processing Technology (IIFPT) through video conferencing from New Delhi, Ms. Kaur pointed out that the Central Government was working to ensure that the people in the rural areas in particular the farmers benefited from technological advancements. By ushering in path breaking research works, food processing industry scientists could help in vastly improving the income generation mode of the farmers such as in value addition of agricultural produce. The scientists and students at the newly-formed IIFPT must try to reach out to the farmers at the field level, understand their requirements, study the problems and come out with solutions to boost their income, Ms. Kaur emphasised.
In evolving as the Indian Institute of Food Processing Technology, the institution would be able to align all its activities in accordance with the mission of the Union Ministry for Food Processing Industries comprehensively. With growing demand from stakeholders, the IIFPT was all set for achieving greater glories, Ms. Harsimrat Kaur Badal reiterated.
Thanking the Union Minister for giving a new direction to the endeavours of the institute, IIFPT Director C. Anandharamakrishnan said that the students, staff and researchers would rise as one to help farmers reap fully and wholly the benefits of their hard labour. Going beyond just crop, the farmers could now think of post harvest preservation and processing, value addition and manufacturing a variety of food products through innovative and result-oriented techniques that the IIFPT scientists have perfected, he observed.
