
          <center>Inaugural Chief Guest: Shri B C Patil, Hon&apos;ble Minister of Agriculture, GoK</center>
     
    <center>Panel Discussion: 1</center><br>
    Importance of Storage Structures in Strengthening of Agricultural & Food<br> 
    '<center>Processing Supply Chain</center>
     <p style='text-align:justify;'>- Shri. Arun Kumar Shrivastava, Managing Director, Central Warehousing 
    Corporation</p>
     <p style='text-align:justify;'>- Shri Rajkumar Khatri IAS, Principal Secretary, Agriculture & Horticulture
    Department, GoK</p>
    <p style='text-align:justify;'> - Shri P V S Suryakumar, Chief General Manager / OIC, NABARD Karnataka
    Regional Office</p>
    <p style='text-align:justify;'> - Shamla Iqbal, Commissioner, Food and Civil Supplies, GoK</p>
     <p style='text-align:justify;'>- Shri Chandran Ratnaswami, Managing Director, NCML</p>
    <p style='text-align:justify;'> - Shri Piyush Patnaik - Managing Director - Cargill India
     Shri Ravi Kannan, CEO, Coldman</p> 
     
     
    <p style='text-align:justify;'>
    <b>Uma Nair</b> - On behalf of ASSOCHAM, I welcome the honorable 
    minister BC Patil….sir welcome to the program and on behalf of 
    ASSOCHAM I would like to welcome all the dignities of program on 
    the webinar on impact of Covid-19 on agro and food processing 
    industries in the state of Karnataka.</p> 
     
    <p style='text-align:justify;'> BC Patil - Thank you. Good Moring all</p> 
     
    <p style='text-align:justify;'>
    <b>Uma Nair</b> - On behalf of ASSOCHAM I would like to extend my 
    gratitude to each and everybody who had given their valuable time 
    for this session. So thank you very much. I would also like to extend</p> 
    <p style='text-align:justify;'>
    my thanks to NABARD who has in fact come and collaborated for this 
    particular session. Thank you sir, thank you very much. We also have 
    one more banking partner, The Karnataka Bank which is also come 
    on to the board as the banking partner. So now let&apos;s move on to the 
    session, I would like to welcome all the dignities and also our 
    honorable minister for this webinar from ASSOCHAM. Before we 
    move on to the session I would like to introduce Dr. Suresh who is 
    the chairmen for agriculture committee for ASSOCHAM. Dr. Suresh, 
    it&apos;s over to you.</p> 
     
    <p style='text-align:justify;'>
    <b>Dr. Suresh</b> - Thank you ma&apos;am. Good Moring everybody. Covid has 
    affected all over the world and agriculture and food processing are 
    the same kind. Those two are the most important for everybody&apos;s life 
    wherein agriculture produce in the main raw material for most of the 
    food processing. Even though they are two separate entities, they go 
    hand in hand to produce safe food for us. In food processing chain, 
    the supply chain management of agriculture food produce is most 
    important for effective distribution of the food across the world. So 
    during Covid-19, because of this lockdown, supply chain<br> 
    management is effected drastically. Wherein we have to appreciate 
    govt. of Karnataka and govt. of India and especially Karnataka&apos;s 
    agricultural department and agricultural invocities. They have 
    opened a agri-ware room and we have congratulate our agricultural 
    minister who has travelled across the state throughout the Covid 
    period to help the farmers and it has helped them a lot to distribute 
    their agriculture products to the consumers directly. In supply chain, 
    we have two different entities: the storage and marketing. Our 
    present webinar will revolve around the storage aspects which helps 
    in reducing post-harvest plasters and the second one is the 
    marketing which helps in penetrating the markets to a greater extent 
    across the world to increase the profitability to all stake holders. 
    With these two aspects in mind, we thought of organizing this 
    webinar. We are concentrating only on what has happened in 
    Karnataka. In this webinar we&apos;ll find out the possible solutions for 
    both storage and marketing of the agricultural food products and to </p>
    <p style='text-align:justify;'>
    have a smooth supply chain during fighting times like Covid-19. 
    Thank you so much.</p> 
     
    <p style='text-align:justify;'>
    <b>Uma Nair</b> - Thank you very much sir. Now I would like to request our 
    honorable agriculture minister BC Patil to release a knowledge 
    report. This knowledge report has come out with the collaboration 
    with NABARD.</p> 
    <p style='text-align:justify;'>
    <b>BC Patil</b> - Thank you ma&apos;am. It is my pleasure to be a part of this 
    webinar organized by NABARD and ASSOCHAM. I am happy to 
    release knowledge report of ASSOCHAM and NABARD on impact of 
    Covid-19 on agro and food processing industries in the state of 
    Karnataka.</p> 
     
    <p style='text-align:justify;'>
    <b>Uma Nair</b> - Thank you sir. Due to the lockdown, we couldn&apos;t send the 
    hard copy so we thought we would release the soft copy and then 
    we&apos;ll distribute the hard copy. I would like to pass on the floor to the 
    honorable minister of agriculture BC Patil to deliver the inaugural 
    address. It&apos;s over to you sir.</p> 
    <p style='text-align:justify;'>
    (Honorable minister of agriculture BC Patil&apos;s speech has been 
    delivered to the media)</p> 
     
    <p style='text-align:justify;'>
    <b>Uma Nair</b> - Thank you so much sir. Definitely after the program we 
    will come up with a recommendation and submit it to the honorable 
    minister. Thank you sir for your valuable time and for coming here 
    and showing your presence to this particular program and I would 
    like to ask you sir, we have good number of agri students attending 
    this particular program from different universities, do you have 
    anything to tell them sir?</p> 
     
    <p style='text-align:justify;'>
    <b>BC Patil</b> - I would like to tell all the agri students not to depend on 
    jobs of the govt. They should go to the villages and start farming. So 
    that they can be a good doctors to the farmers. They can teach, they</p> 
    <p style='text-align:justify;'>
    can make the farmers to know how technology can be used and how 
    scientific things can be used by the farmers to develop and produce 
    and doubling the income of the farmers. And now most of the 
    students are getting in the govt. jobs and I want agri students to be 
    like doctors to the farmers. In Karnataka 79ABC of revenue act has 
    been amended and now anybody can go and purchase the land and 
    can start cultivation and farming. I want young minds, young 
    thoughts, young thinking should duck to the villagers and start 
    farming. By doing this, Indian economy can boost up and fulfil our 
    PM&apos;s dream.</p> 
     
    <p style='text-align:justify;'>
    <b>Uma Nair</b> - Thank you very much sir. It was in fact an inspirational 
    words to the students community as you rightly mentioned, we need 
    to see many youths going back to the farming community because 
    they are going to be our next future so need to have students getting 
    into that particular sector to increase the GDP of our country. So 
    thank you very much for your time sir.</p> 
     
    <p style='text-align:justify;'>
    BC Patil - One more thing I want to bring it to your kind notice, I want 
    to start agri tourism for the city people, where the city people, 
    students and most of the children doesn&apos;t know how paddy/rice are 
    formed. They don&apos;t know if rice is coming from paddy. I have already 
    given a suggestion to the educational minister Suresh Kumar to 
    start agri tourism. Another thing is weekend farming. All the 
    youngsters and engineers are wasting their time by visiting pubs and 
    other things. Instead of that, they can visit any village and start 
    weekend farming.</p> 
    <p style='text-align:justify;'>
    <b>Uma Nair</b> - That&apos;s really a good idea sir. I think your words have 
    reached the audience and we&apos;ll see what changes happens in our 
    coming days. Actually agriculture is the backbone of our country and 
    I think every individual youths and youngster should focus on that to 
    see that the GDP of our country will grow on agriculture. Thank you 
    very much for your time sir. Now I would like to move to the next 
    topic of the day that is the panel discussion. The panel discussion is</p> 
    <p style='text-align:justify;'>
    about the importance of the storage structure and strengthening of 
    agriculture and food processing supply chain as rightly mentioned 
    by Dr. Suresh, during pandemic supply chain was badly affected. 
    ASSOCHAM has been deliberating on this topic every year including 
    this and Amit Ji is also a part of this. I think everybody understood 
    that supply chain is very important aspect in the agricultural food 
    processing when it has to come from the farm to the market supply 
    chain makes a crucial role in this agricultural food processing 
    industry. I would not take much of your time, I would like to welcome 
    Rwitwika Bhattacharya who is the CEO and the founder of 
    Swaniti initiative, who is going to moderate this entire session. We 
    have Sri. Neeraj Kumar Varma, the CGF Karnataka regional office 
    NABARD, welcome sir. Sri Amith Vatsyan who is the partner of agri 
    and social sector advisory Africa India and Middle East from 
    Earnst&young welcome sir. We have Sri Shivanand Rai who is the 
    general manager of central warehousing corporation ministry of 
    food and public distribution system govt. of India and director for 
    Karnataka state warehousing corporation from ministry of GOK, 
    welcome sir. We have the final speaker Dr. KC Gummagolmath, he is 
    from institutional management from Hyderabad. So Rwitwika, the 
    floor is onto you so you can take the discussion forward</p> 
    <p style='text-align:justify;'>
    <b>Moderator</b> - Thank you so much for that Uma, that was really a 
    wonderful introduction really appreciate it. I think it&apos;s really 
    wonderful to know that we are in an ecosystem right now where 
    there is so much social, political, economic will to strengthen food 
    processing, to strengthen warehousing and to really focus on the 
    agricultural sector and we see that right from the central govt. down 
    to the state govt., I think there is so much potential right know to 
    transform the agricultural industry and we see that through the 
    ordnance whether that&apos;s an essential commodity act or whether 
    that&apos;s a incredible focus in various states, Of course including 
    Karnataka o build infrastructural want to take up much of your time. I 
    do want to briefly mention the intent of the panel today would be to 
    examine warehousing ecosystem, agricultural ecosystem in different 
    perspective. So I request each speaker to talk about their 
    backgrounds that they bring in before Covid and of course the social</p> 
    <p style='text-align:justify;'>
    capital, the political capital that Covid has built in and the promise 
    that holds. So I would love to start off with Amith ji. How do you see 
    Covid affecting agro and food processing industry and what are the 
    other possibilities?</p> 
    <p style='text-align:justify;'>
    <b>Amith Ji</b> - Thank you. Hello everyone. I think we need to look at Covid 
    along with that also look at Atma Nirbar Bharat Abyan the way govt. 
    has responded. Covid has caused huge destruction and we know 
    that the supply chain has disturbed in a major way and also the 
    existing processing unit which were suffering before Covid and govt. 
    has taken multiple measures but I think along with that historical 
    modulance which has opened up the space for much better vertical 
    integration as well as the ordinance within the Karnataka govt. being 
    able to trade across the area by farmers. To the question which I 
    going to focus on is that now space have been opened up What 
    would be needed in the ecosystem to be able to capture the 
    opportunities. So just to say that if we currently look at Karnataka it 
    is ranked 7th
     as far as infrastructure is concerned and it needs 
    additional 2 million metric ton of storage capacity. So if one has to 
    respond to honorable minister sir vision that there is an opportunity 
    for processing and there is an aim to increase the number. Along 
    with that both storage and processing needs to be aligned and later 
    in the conversation I would also talk about specific type of storages. 
    The other thing which is also important is that storage of processing 
    and that has been our experience with MOFPI and with other 
    schemes that it is very important that these storages of processing 
    are part of larger value chain supply chain integration where at one 
    end farmers are involved so already multiple stimulus have been 
    announced including the 1 lakh crore stimulus for the infrastructure. 
    At the other end we have got buyers and large companies which 
    have been responding to consumers at Karnataka level or also I 
    believe for Karnataka the big opportunity is looking at national and 
    very importantly irrational market. To be specific it&apos;s Middle East and 
    CIS markets. All of this cannot be achieved until and unless the 
    missing medal of storage and infrastructure is put in place otherwise 
    farmers will continue to produce great stuff. I have been to Bagakot, 
    I have been to many of the areas in Karnataka and farmers are one of</p> 
    <p style='text-align:justify;'>
    the most entrepreneurs people. They are producing and that needs 
    to come. That I think is one important piece and one action that I 
    would like to highlight is that infrastructure needs to be built and 
    recognized based upon what is being produced. So I would highly 
    recommend a cluster way of thinking recognizing what are the key 
    areas that the particular commodities are developing so that the 
    storage and processing is aligned to the production and aligned to 
    the final demand and agro cluster approach where FPO&apos;s are at the 
    base is going to be critical. The second thing which I think is 
    absolutely important is that just the way Karnataka earlier lead with 
    electronics and investment in IT sector is very important to facilitate 
    the current connection between the buyers who are coming in and 
    the producers, the FPO&apos;s who are there so digit connection specially 
    in Covid context where physically is very hard to figure out who is 
    what, who is going to be very important to the ecosystem. On 
    boarding the third point which I want to make it is about on boarding 
    the warehouses and supporting private storage which can also be 
    declared as marketing art specially in the intalent because the 
    private sector will be able to reach out areas which are accessible 
    but in north Karnataka and in deep south, it going to be very 
    important to build this type of an analysis. The last point I want to 
    mention is currently while the processing policy have come in but 
    Karnataka level policy on FPO which has aligned with the guidelines 
    which has been released but which answers the state wants to do 
    and also takes into account the contract farming module so that 
    Karnataka as a comprehensive will go a long way to respond to how 
    the clusters and the infrastructure is going to be supported at the 
    bottom. Lastly, this is a particular recommendation I would like to 
    give, the micro food enterprise scheme has been launched under 
    MOFPI and its very important and honorable minister in talking in 
    farming which it&apos;s going to be good food entrepreneurship which is 
    supported extensively as part of ecosystem for farming and along 
    with that is to just to summarize the strengthening FPO&apos;s at the 
    bottom part of the ecosystem building infrastructures around 
    clusters developing policies to support this and getting the 
    infrastructure on board where they are going to avail various</p> 
    <p style='text-align:justify;'>
    benefits which currently govt. is offering going to be crucial to 
    respond to the opportunities which exist for Karnataka.</p> 
    <p style='text-align:justify;'>
    <b>Moderator</b> - Thank you for that. It was very helpful. We are now 
    going to discuss two threats that you discussed and take that to 
    other panelist. On is to talk about infrastructure and need to align 
    infrastructure in a better way for optimal output. To that end I 
    actually wanted to turn towards to Shivanand Rai who I wanted 
    to identify special experience form the central warehousing 
    perspective and looking at it from policy and how we can strengthen 
    policy that can help the larger ecosystem further, what are the 
    policies that you think make sense to focus on?</p> 
    <p style='text-align:justify;'>
    <b>Shivanand Rai</b> - Good morning to all participants and honorable 
    minister BC Patil sir. It is a great opportunity for me. I can 
    summarize and CWC is around 10 million tons capacities all over 
    India and Karnataka we are having around 4.5 metric ton. Karnataka 
    state warehousing corporation is having around 17 lakh metric ton 
    with the help of NABARD and total food corporation of India is having 
    around 4 lakh metric ton. Total warehousing that is listed under 
    WDRA so they see that all warehouses should be scientific senders. 
    All over country it is 1799 has been registered. So these are the 
    basics and during the lockdown CWC all over India has handled 
    about 100 lakh metric ton of food ware and 20 lakh metric ton for 
    public distribution system and in Karnataka 2-3 lakh so is coming to 
    that further we have container filter essentials and still in this Covid 
    period the only problem we are facing is labour problem. Otherwise 
    or warehouses are heading on full capacity so we still want to 
    expand the basic</p> 
    <p style='text-align:justify;'>
    <b>Moderators</b> - Thank you for that sir. It was very helpful. Moving the 
    infrastructure that existed and moving the amount of work that has 
    been done, one thing Amith Ji mentioned was FPO. About the 
    ecosystem face and then there is capital which is on the ground and 
    which is executing on these firms. So Dr. KC I actually want to turn 
    towards you and you had mentioned very success stories especially 
    in this ecosystem, given there are chance to improve infrastructure, 
    to improve capacity and there are still incredible stories that you</p> 
    <p style='text-align:justify;'> mention of FPO&apos;s in the kind of draft they were doing. Would kind of 
    highlight those kind of examples?</p> 
    <p style='text-align:justify;'>
    <b>Dr. KC</b> - Good morning everyone and I congratulate ASSOCHAM for 
    hosting such an important webinar. Impact of Covid have been quite 
    harsh on other sector than agriculture sector. The first impact of 
    Indian agriculture is destruction in supply chain. There was an 
    interstate and inter district transportation ban and that really 
    disturbed the supply chain and there was a delay in permit thought 
    agricultural commodities were permitted so there was a delay in 
    transportation. So these things affected the storage of agricultural 
    commodities and also exports are effected due to international ban. 
    So overall scenario impact of Covid on Indian agriculture. Even the 
    other sectors are also badly effected the growth has been cut down 
    by 20% to 17%. Bu growth in agricultural sector fortunately has 
    come down by 1% or 2%. So this pandemic can be an opportunity. 
    Here I want to make one important point. You can leverage ICT for 
    location of storage structures like in Delhi they launched an app for 
    location of vacant beds. So like that we can develop an app for the 
    storage sectors. Second important point to make is we can leverage 
    FPO and we can go for a smaller warehouses instead of building a 
    big warehouse and again farmers has to take it for a longer distance. 
    The FPO&apos;s can be strengthen by state govt. providing requisite 
    assistance by having a storage structures. Mentioning the third point 
    to the minister bring agriculture and line departments into marketing 
    as well. For this policy change is required we can have a marketing 
    cell in each of the allied sectors because these people are closely 
    attached with the farmers can sensitize the farmers about different 
    marketing and various aspects and passage of the two ordinance by 
    GOI, role of the APMC is confined to that market area beyond that 
    now this APMC will have a new role by involving in the backward 
    linkages by developing warehouse, cold storages structures and 
    storages more than anything Karnataka is having an international 
    institute CFTRI Karnataka govt. can take a advantage of the institute 
    some technologies can be borrow and transfer to the farmers as well 
    as the total supply chain. These are the few points, Karnataka is</p> 
    <p style='text-align:justify;'>
    blessed with all climatic zones so cluster based approach export for 
    domestic marketing will help a lot.</p> 
    <p style='text-align:justify;'>
    <b>Moderate</b> - Minister Sir, would you like to say something?</p> 
     <p style='text-align:justify;'>BC Patil - Now warehouses are there but still we need and I wanted 
    to convert some warehouses into cold storage which is quite 
    essential now a days after the Covid, we learnt that cold storage is 
    much essential because when the supply chain demand was less 
    farmers spoiled their vegetables and fruits instead of this they would 
    have stored in cold storage in Karnataka we have only 32 cold 
    storages and out of which they couldn&apos;t able to store all the things 
    and the perishable goods were big loss to the Karnataka farming 
    that time. That&apos;s why we look forward for more cold storage that&apos;s 
    what essential.</p> 
    <p style='text-align:justify;'>
    <b>Moderator</b> - Neeraj Ji, would you like to add something about the 
    govt. initiative and about the NABARD funding initiative in the 
    agriculture post Covid?</p> 
    <p style='text-align:justify;'>
    <b>Neeraj Ji</b> - Good morning. Thanks for having me in the webinar for 
    ASSOCHAM organizing this timely webinar topical theme by giving 
    the current Covid-19 situation and also I must thank our honorable 
    minister BC Patil sir stated as telling the FPO&apos;s should pitch in 
    and the honorable PM giving the importance to the rural India at the 
    pandemic time by bringing out the three strategic provisions through 
    ordinance to convert totally into beans and this time will come the 
    FPO&apos;s chance in the rural India. As I was CEO and MD of NABARD 
    two years back and in Karnataka I drove funding to the FPO&apos;s. So out 
    of 400 FPO&apos;s 250 FPO&apos;s has been promoted by NABARD and we lend 
    to 40 FPO&apos;s and this year also we going to lend 50 FPO&apos;s and also will 
    promote 50-100 the govt. of India has come up with FPO funds as we 
    have funds we want to fund across India 10,000 FPO&apos;s and also I&apos;m 
    sure the agriculture minister of Karnataka and of NABARD is there 
    and I&apos;m sure Karnataka will be the leading state in this mission of 
    FPO&apos;s promoting. FPO is key to everything from storage to marketing 
    aggregation to realization of value and the income FPO is the key. 
    The intention of GOI by doubling the farmer&apos;s income which 
    Dalwai will speak in the next panel. The next decade will be the</p> 
    <p style='text-align:justify;'>
    FPO&apos;s decade GOI announced credit guarantee fund and also the 
    equity provided to the FPO&apos;s as heading the Karnataka NABARD we 
    will assure with the FPO&apos;s in NABARD in guidance and collaboration 
    with the Karnataka govt. under the leadership of honorable CM and 
    honorable agriculture minister we will be the leading in funding. For 
    FPO&apos;s all kind of facilities and credit facilities is for storage and 
    pandemic processing localizing centers the key localilse 
    aggregation at the farmers level is the key. This kind of FPO&apos;s will 
    evolve federation of the FPO&apos;s. The GOI Is planning the cluster one 
    district one cluster and that is also been identified and also we will 
    be having a meeting with the district level managers of NABARD and 
    tomorrow the GOI Agriculture Ministry will have the meeting with the 
    DGM&apos;s of across the country and the state with the FPO&apos;s and again 
    we will assure from NABARD to the agri ministry and very shortly we 
    will come out with the action plan going to be in Karnataka also and 
    this is regarding to FPO and also across the country this will be a 
    right movement. In pandemic times the farmers need all kind of helps 
    because the farmers will be the key drivers at this point of time 
    agriculture sector is the better place than other sectors because 
    they drive the economy of India also. Another key announcement by 
    NABARD we are going to provide storage facilities, processing 
    facilities to saturate throughout India to assist and to lend max 4% 
    and will give the grant for the capacity building. We have announced 
    and the circular has come and very shortly and this we will do it in 
    first phase in the year we notice the very first phase and across 
    Karnataka they are ready along with the FPO&apos;s form packs will be 
    there not only FPO&apos;s but packs are also there. The GOI has 
    announced the agriculture infrastructure fund and also announced 1 
    lakh fund for interest of 3% along will the bankers in Karnataka the 
    NABARD will give the grater boost. These are the schemes from the 
    FPO&apos;s and packs which we are going to convert into multi-services 
    center and this schemes will be translated very soon we have to 
    come from paper to the ground and as our honorable minister as he 
    is travelling in the state with his enthusiasm I am sure today is the 
    starting point from today we are going to translate all the policies 
    into action and shortly we will do this in collaboration with the GOK 
    shortly. Thank you</p> 