Govt. focuses on food processing

Chief Minister Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy has the government is spending about ₹10,000 crore on augmenting the infrastructure in the food processing sector covering the entire supply chain. He insisted that a concerted effort should be made to facilitate remunerative price to farmers.

At a review meeting on the proposed food processing clusters on Monday, Mr. Jagan Mohan Reddy said that officials should identify the places where the clusters should be ideally set up in order to realise the full potential of a rich variety of food crops grown in the State.

Emphasis should be laid on solving the problems faced by plantain, sugarcane, chilli, tomato, mango and turmeric farmers and means to add value to those crops be explored.

A separate wing in the government should work on processing and packing aspects, the Chief Minister said, agreeing with the suggestion by officials that a mega food processing plant would give a fillip to the sector.

Plant mooted

Officials told the Chief Minister that it would be good to have a food processing plant in each Parliamentary constituency, with which the latter concurred and called for an action plan.

Mr. Jagan Mohan Reddy said the Rythu Bharosa Kendras play a crucial role in growing high-quality crops, by supplying the required inputs to farmers. Millets have tremendous scope for value addition, which should not be wasted, he added.