Monday, June 9, 2008

CII organises two-day fruit & vegetable summit

by Jo Black

Cashing in on the changing food habits the world over, as well as in the country, India’s fruit and vegetable (F&V) sector is poised at a definite turning point.

The ‘Fruit and Vegetable Summit 2008′ organized by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) partnering with the Ministry of Agriculture and its affiliated institutions, the National Horticulture Mission and the National Horticulture Board, from May 12 to 13, 2008, was a comprehensive exercise aimed at providing a new direction to the entire F&V value chain, covering all aspects of the sector ‘From Farm to Fork’.

India ranks as the world’s second largest producer of fruits and vegetables today.

A conscious decision by the government to promote crop diversification and the industry’s enthusiasm has created a success story in the field of horticulture over the past few years.

Ironically, it has a mere one per cent share in global F&V exports and needs to integrate the various elements in its F&V value chain to realize its full potential.

The summit with its focus on “Developing Globally Competitive Value chains” provided a unique platform for all the stakeholders in this fast emerging sector to come together and explore new opportunities for investment and growth.

Appreciating the need for government support to this fast emerging sector, Union Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar agreed to inaugurate the unique summit.

The government is committed to help the sector reach its full potential and has allocated Rs 1,100 crore in the current Union Budget for augmenting the fruit and vegetable business.

Spearheaded by CII’s National Council on Agriculture, the two-day summit held in the capital comprehensively covered all elements of the F&V value chain from producers and grower associations to retailers, processors, logistics, cold chains and exporters and was designed to work on issues and processes through experience sharing.

The summit brought to the fore emerging prospects in the F&V value chains and the crop sector as well as the various aspects of investments in value chain.

CII also brought out a value-chain-specific and crop specific opportunities in a first of its kind F&V investors guide during the Summit. Titled “Empowering F&V Business through Information”, the guide was released by the Agriculture Minister.

The summit witnessed massive representation from the central and state governments and over 200 existing and emerging industries who deliberated over policy issues, investment opportunities, learning from successful business models and case studies in order to develop interventions for developing globally competitive F&V chains in the country.

Six technical sessions involving international experts, and representatives of the government along side the existing and emerging industry, deliberated on the outlook and growth drivers of F&V businesses in India; retail opportunities, the multi-dimensional challenges in F&V exports; connecting farmers to consumers through processing; infrastructure and logistics gap and resultant opportunities in handling perishables; sourcing and scalability - integrating small farmers into the supply chain; and enhancing the efficiency of the F&V supply chain through use of information technology.

The aim was to understand government plans for the F&V sector in the XIth plan; explore the challenges and imperatives of business models in fresh produce retailing; share perspectives from the government and major F&V exporters on the multi-dimensional challenges in integrating the export value chain; understand the government’s plans for promoting F&V based processing and integration of supply chain; discuss infrastructure and logistic gaps and resultant investment opportunities and credit and risk management in the sector and address scalability challenges in F&V businesses.

The CII also shared the key findings of the CII-Yes Bank Strategy Report on developing globally competitive value chains with the participants during the course of the summit.

 

 

 

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