Chief Secretary emphasizes on Farmers’ Training

Chief Secretary Sri Gokul Chandra Pati advised for farmer-industry linkage to fetch more income to farmers’ family. Such a linkage, said Sri Pati can be established by assured higher price for quality products along with assistance and support for grading, packing, processing and value addition to the agricultural products. This he said in his inaugural address to the ‘Seminar-cum-Exposition on Food Processing & Agri-business Potential of Odisha’ organized by Chamber of Indian Industries ( CII) in the premises of hotel crown today. Chief Secretary further said that farmers in Odisha do not generally do processing like grading, packing and value addition for which they get less price for their produces. He opined that the farmers can be organized in to groups, provided training and financial assistance for aggregating, processing and value addition of the products. One or other member of the family who is not engaged in direct tilling or filed operations can be involved in these activities so that family as a whole gets more income.

Chief Secretary asked the industries to have direct linkage with farmers, facilitate the process of empowering them through knowledge & training, and provide quality seeds under assured remunerative price for their products. Sri Pati also emphasized on training the farmers regarding the techniques of reducing the cost of production through scientific application of fertilizer, pesticide and water as per soil health indicators. Chief Secretary has asked CII to come up with concrete recommendations for realization of these objectives.

Among others, Principal Secretary Agriculture Sri Rajesh Verma, Secretary Micro, Small & Medium Industries Sri Panchanana Das, Chairman CII Odisha State Council Mr D.S. Ravindra Raju and Convener, agricultural panel CII spoke in the inaugural session. The business sitting of the seminar was conducted in 2 different technical sessions. Session-I focused on Investment opportunities in food and agri-business in Odisha and session-II focused on Infrastructure and support services for food & agri-business in Odisha. Around 8 major papers on these themes presented by theme experts from various industries, institutions and corporations were discussed in these two sessions.