Union Food Processing Industries Minister Chirag Paswan on Wednesday said the government aims to double the level of food processing in the country to 25 per cent of total farm output over the next five years, backed by several reforms undertaken during the past 12 years.
He also said processing adds value to food items, provides financial security to farmers by increasing the value of their produce through storage, creates jobs and limits wastage.
“By transforming produce into product, processing leads to value addition,” Paswan said at an event to commemorate 50 years of Coca-Cola’s Indian home-grown drink Maaza.
Paswan’s comments came even as an expert committee constituted by the Centre recommended that mango-based beverages be mandated to contain 22-25 per cent genuine natural mango pulp, with the concessional 5 per cent goods and services tax (GST) slab reserved only for products meeting this threshold — a move aimed at reviving demand for Totapuri mango pulp and shoring up farm-gate prices.
The panel, headed by T Damodaran, director, ICAR-Central Institute of Subtropical Horticulture (CISH), Lucknow, submitted its findings at a meeting chaired by Agriculture Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan on Wednesday. The minister directed officials to initiate inter-ministerial consultations on the recommendations.
The committee was tasked with studying the sharp fall in Totapuri mango prices this season in Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Karnataka, the crop’s key growing belt.
Damodaran attributed the decline to a mismatch between processing capacity and procurement timelines, low pulp content in beverages sold domestically, and volatility in global prices.
Meanwhile, Paswan said at the event that through technology and processing, a seasonal, perishable food item such as mango has been transformed into a year-round product, which aligns with the vision of the food processing industry.
He also felicitated a few mango farmers. Vanita Prabhakaram, a mango farmer from Tamil Nadu who has supplied mangoes to the company for 20 years, said that over the past three years, incomes had been severely hit as mango prices had fallen from around ₹20-30 per kg to about ₹5 per kg. She said this was because the number of mango trees had continued to rise, increasing yields.
“We are requesting the Minister for a mango juice factory in our Theni district,” the farmer said.
Paswan, meanwhile, expressed gratitude to the farmers and said that while India had been signing many free trade agreements, none would compromise the interests of the country’s farmers.
