A total of 719 agricultural clusters across Kerala, a honey park at Mavelikara, and a honey and banana Park at Kannara, near Thrissur, are among the projects being lined up by the State government to boost the farm sector, said Minister for Agriculture V.S. Sunil Kumar here on Tuesday.
He said the park at Mavelikara would have the capacity to process 50 tonnes of honey and would leverage Kerala’s special climatic conditions and biodiversity to produce quality honey. The Kannara project is being funded by the Kerala Infrastructure Investment Fund Board. The Minister was speaking at the two-day Food Summit 2018 organised by the Kerala unit of the Confederation of Indian Industry.
The focus of Kerala’s agricultural effort was productivity and value addition. The upcoming summit on value addition in agriculture, VAIGA 2018, would be a major step towards linking farmers and technology providers for processing and value addition, he said. VAIGA 2018 will be held in Thrissur from December 27 to 30.
The State had been able to focus on value addition in a big way. The Coconut Mission envisaged increasing acreage and processing of coconut. Similarly there were wide ranging efforts to increase acreage under paddy. Utilisation of jackfruit, vast quantities of which are wasted, was another area of opportunity for processors, he said.
GI registrations
Kerala was making efforts to bring 14 farm produce under the Geographical Indication Registration. These produce include garlic from Vattavada in Idukki district and chilli from Edayoor, in Malappuram. Kerala already has a large number of produce under the GI registration including Nilambur teak and the Changalikkodan variety of bananas from Thrissur.
