
          <b>Agro and Food Processing - Session 2 notes</b><br>
          <center>Panel Discussion: 2</center><br>
          <center>Harmonizing Marketing Bodies for Effective Penetration of Domestic </center>
          <center>and Export Market</center>
          <p style='text-align:justify;'> - Shri Ashok Dalwai, CEO, National Rainfed Area Authority (NRAA),<br> 
          Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers&apos; Welfare, Government of India</p>
           <p style='text-align:justify;'>- Neelkamal Darbari, IAS, Managing Director SFAC<br>
          Shri.. Tushar Girinath I.A.S, Principal Secretary to Govt., Co-Operation 
          Dept.,</p>
          <p style='text-align:justify;'>
          Uma S Nair introduced the esteemed panelists and the moderator 
          to session.</p> 
          <p style='text-align:justify;'>
          Dr. Prbhod Halde welcomed the panelists and shared the context about 
          the session. He stressed about the agriculture agro economy and food 
          processing will gain lot of importance and opportunity in domestic and 
          international in export sector to work towards &quot;Atma Nirbhar Bharat&quot;.</p> 
          <p style='text-align:justify;'>
          Amit Vatsyayan said the &quot;One Nation and One Market&quot; announced 
          by the PM Modi. He pointed out that there is a significance opportunity 
          in domestic and international markets by promoting through 
          marketing bodies such as fruits and vegetables, food processing and 
          other commodities in Karnataka by harmonizing the quality of food 
          products and supply chain. The marketing bodies to identify the critical</p> 
          <p style='text-align:justify;'>
          areas and address them so that the farmers can grow more and 
          produce more. There are there points f deliberation by (i) commercially 
          engage the aggregators through the dedicated FPO (ii) The Advisory 
          bodies to understand the market trends and indentify the domestic and 
          international markets to meet the production and requirement (iii) the 
          Karnataka State should come up with Agro Export policy and identify 
          the key products and help the farmers to export more and produce 
          more.</p>
          <p style='text-align:justify;'>
         Dr. Ashok Dalwai, IAS said to increase the farmer&apos;s income by creating 
          value addition and help to generate high returns. There are two ways 
          to increase the farmers income (i) by creating the value addition to the 
          products by increasing the shelf by processing the food produce (ii) by 
          primary processing of produce and connecting the market and create a 
          safe environment. He stressed about strengthening the agriculture 
          commodity sector by helping them reduce the loss of produce and help 
          them to earn more returns. Also support the farmer by selling every 
          product he grows. The farmer need to focus on harvesting rather 
          concentrating on fertilizers also produce the agri products as per the 
          domestic and international standards. The Government of India come 
          up with 2 aspects to support the farmer community (i) free agri market 
          (ii) strengthen the agri market by building the muscle of farmers. There 
          is another initiative from Government of India taken under agriculture 
          marketing with APMC act and separate market place for farmers to sell 
          their produce, by creating more than one market place helps the 
          farmers to earn more. He suggested to create a trade zones apart from 
          APMC market place to meet the demand. The Government of India also 
          announced to support more than 10,000 FPOs and strengthen them 
          and allocated more than 30,000 crore to strengthen</p>
           <p style='text-align:justify;'>and restructure he 
          cooperative societies to help the farmers. He closed the speech by</p> 
          <p style='text-align:justify;'> saying help farmer to how to produce and teach the technique to 
          produce and connect with APMC and other markets.</p> 
          <p style='text-align:justify;'>
          Dr. K. C. Gummagolmath said to create a harmony between the agri 
          bodies and other related players in the sector. The said that the current 
          era is to meet the demand driven market and plan the agri produce. He 
          suggested there are few ways to improve the produce (i) Contract 
          farming (ii) linking the farmers to retail chain (iii) create online 
          platform to connect with consumers with selected commodities (iv) the 
          State to look at implementing the agri export policy (v) implement the 
          best practices if agri business in food processing sector in the State.</p> 
          <p style='text-align:justify;'><b> Joanna Kane-Potaka</b> said that support the SMEs, as there are more 
          than 6 lakh SME&apos;s in the State. Post covid there will 30% of SME&apos;s will 
          be shut if not supported. To tackle the pandemic she suggested (i) right 
          information about the produce and export to market (ii) insight of covid 
          hit region and support with goods movement (iii) create more platform 
          of trade fairs to improvise the farmer&apos;s income. She urged to farmer 
          connect with FPO&apos;s and SME&apos;s is important and this collaboration will 
          create a platform to felicitate the farmers. Also said, it is important to 
          help the farmer with quality and quantity to create consistent supply 
          also provides value to the supply chain.</p> 
          <p style='text-align:justify;'>
          Thangam Rammachandran said that Karnataka State is the key 
          producer of rose onion. We at APEDA work closely with farmer help 
          with export of produce. APEDA invites other stakeholders join hands to 
          connect from farm level to market. Also encouraged the sector players 
          to participate in the export promotion and buyer seller meet. The 
          cluster based export policy will help farmers to produce and meet the 
          demand. There are various pesticides available in the market; right set 
          of pesticides pre harvest helps the farmers to produce agri products
          that meet the global standards. She suggested to train the farmers on 
          right pesticides for pre harvest, best agriculture practices to yield more, 
          packaging and marketing. These elements will help farmer to 
          participate in domestic and global level buyer seller meet. APEDA also 
          works closely with farmer help with their financial needs to meet the 
          demand and produce agri products.</p>
     <p style='text-align:justify;'>Vote of Thanks & Summarization: Shri. Krishna Kumar Joshi, C o Chairman,
     ASSOCHAM Karnataka Council</p>
          <p style='text-align:justify;'>
          Krishna Kumar Joshi concluded the session with closing remarks by 
          picking key points discussed during the session.</p> 
          <p style='text-align:justify;'>
          The session was attended by more than 400 participants from various 
          industry, academia and agri institutions. 
          ***
          </p>