<div>The government on Tuesday (21 July) gave final approval to 13 proposals for setting up of mega food parks, in it's first phase, in various parts of the country including rural areas during the current Five Year Plan period, the monsoon session of the Parliament was informed. However, challenges in terms of policy changes needs to be met first before a successful take off of these ambitious projects. </div><div> </div><div><strong>What Is A Mega Food Park? </strong></div><div>The objective of the Mega Food Parks Scheme is to provide excellent infrastructure facilities for food processing industries along the value chain from the farm to the market. The scheme was originally launched as the 2008 Food Parks Scheme (FPS). The objective of this scheme was to raise the processing of perishables in the country from the existing 6 per cent to 20 per cent and increase value addition from 20 per cent to 35 per cent. Further, its objective was to increase the share of India in the global food trade from 1.5 per cent to 3 per cent by the year 2015. It will include Creation of infrastructure near the farm, transportation, logistics and centralized processing centers. </div><div> </div><div>The main feature of the scheme is a cluster based approach. The scheme will be demand driven; pre-marketed and would facilitate food processing units to meet environmental, safety and social standards. The expected outcome is increased realization for farmers, creation of high quality rural processing infrastructure, reduction in wastage, capacity building of the producers and processors and creation of an efficient supply chain along with significant direct and indirect employment generation.</div><div> </div><div> </div><div><strong>Challenges Ahead</strong></div><div>History says that food parks in India have never been successful. </div><div> </div><div>The key challenge in setting up food parks lies in land acquisition. Most projects, in the past have failed to take off mainly because of the bottlenecks involved in land acquisition. "But with the Land Acquisition Bill passed, things will look up with these mega FP's," says an FMCG analyst. </div><div> </div><div>However, the bigger challenge also is the lack of agriculture sector reforms that many believe should run concurrently even as infrastructure for food processing is set up in the country.</div><div> </div><div>In the last 6 years, Food Parks in India did not take off successfully in India during the UPA government. But the Narendra Modi government has ambitious plans to set up 42 mega food parks across the country in the next 3 to 4 years announced Harsimrat Kaur Badal, Union Minister for Food Processing Industries last week. It remains to be seen how the NDA government makes it successful with its twist in policies. </div><div> </div><div>For instance, 70 per cent of agri business in India happens through co-operatives, they have to be integrated into this scheme of mega food parks to give a facelift to the mega FP scheme. </div><div> </div><div> </div><div> </div><div> </div>
