Telangana government is fine tuning the the draft food processing policy to incorporate self help groups on the one hand and on the other to attract big players for the high-end processing.
At present farmers irrespective of whether they are in the rain-fed or in the ayacut areas are used to cultivating crops like paddy and maize. For instance in Medak, Ranga Reddy, Nalgonda maize is cultivated though they are rain deficit areas more suited for cultivation of crops like Sorghum and millets. “But the challenge is to create market for these crops and substituting income from the existing crops like paddy, maize. This is where value addition and processing will help expand the market,” sources said.
Telangana cultivates major field crops like paddy, maize, cotton, soyabean, red gram, bengal gram, ground nut and horticulture crops like mango, citrus, pomogrante and spice crops like turmeric and chillies with export potential. While the State is surplus in crops like paddy, maize and cotton. However, the State is deficient in pulses, oil seeds and vegetables.
Vegetable cultivation
The Horticulture Department is also looking at promoting vegetable cultivation within the 50 km radius of Hyderabad as at present the city gets 40 % of its requirement from outside the State. A similar analysis has to be made for urban areas like Warangal and Karimnagar.
There is a proposal, sources said, to identify villages with bore wells and promote minor irrigation, mulching and provide shade nets to enable the growth of vegetable gardens. Vegetable cultivation needed to be promoted in urban agglomerations to make them self-sufficient. At present even the vegetables that can be grown here are being imported to meet the shortfall, they said.
The Food Processing Policy for the State proposes to set up small local processing units in the vicinity of crop colonies for the convenience of farmers on one hand and large scale industry based units that would be given incentives by the Industry Department.
Capital subsidy
There are quite a few entrepreneurs waiting for the Food Processing Policy to make investments. A 35 % capital subsidy is proposed for machinery of food processing industry.
Rice mills, pulse mills can be set up by SHGs near the crop colonies raising those crops for sorting and grading before farmers could sell their produce and command better prices in the market. In Wanaparthy district, a pilot project was set up by the Collector for value addition of ground nut crop and extraction of by-products.
