Principal Secretary Agriculture, Navin Kumar Choudhary today said that production of food crops matching quality parameters of big food chains and food processing units is the prerequisite for better marketing and high returns to the farmers.He said this while visiting Haldi Ram’s Processing Unit (Anantjeet Nutriments) at Bari Brahmana, Jammu.Director Agriculture Jammu, Inder Jeet; Director Animal Husbandry, Vivek Sharma; Director CAD, Smita Sethi; Director Horticulture Ram Sevak; Director Sheep Husbandry Jammu Sanjeev Kumar; CAO Jammu, F. A. Bhat, besides other senior officers of line departments accompanied the Principal Secretary during the visit.Speaking on the occasion, Principal Secretary directed the concerned officers to facilitate the farmers and growers in terms of providing high quality seeds, required machinery, technical support, transportation, cold storage facilities etc to enable them to produce raw material of international standards meeting the requirements of big food chains.He further asked to strengthen the supply chain and scale up cultivation of high quality food crops.He also emphasised the importance of having regular interactions of the stake holders that is farmers, market players and departmental officers which will be beneficial to all and help in providing much needed market linkages to producers/farmers.
It was apprised that about 200 quintals of Potato L R variety is being supplied to the farmers this year which is used especially for Potato Chips production and area will be expanded next cropping season by involving more societies of growers as well as individual farmers.Owners/managing board members (Haldi Ram Processing Plant) including Rupal Singh, Deepal Singh, Tripat Singh, Jasleen Kour interacted with the Principal Secretary and apprised him regarding working of the processing plant including peeler /potato slicer, hopper frying system, flavor applicator and packaging unit.Basant Singh Saini, Chairman Cooperative Societies Arnia, Rajinder Sharma President Farmers Potato Seed/ Vegetables/ Processing Societies Bishnah, Tajinder Singh JK Kisan Morcha, Prominent farmers and growers discussed with the Principal Secretary various problems being faced by Potato Growers, Vegetable Growers relating to cold storage, marketing and supply of quality seeds for which he issued on spot instructions to the departmental officers to redress these problems.Later, Naveen Choudhary also visited the Nav Bharat Flour Mill Bari Brahamana where he was shown drying, grinding /pulverizing unit/ automatic packaging system. Products like Atta, Suji, Maida, Bran etc. are being processed there in large quantity. Principal Secretary instructed the departmental officers to make provision of high quality seeds of vegetables and cereals to the farmers so that they can cater to the specific needs of food processing industry and are compensated with handsome price for their produce.