The Mega Food Parks Scheme (MFPS), launched by the Ministry of Food Processing Industries, was developed under the 11th Five Year Plan and was implemented in 2008.the Park will have facilities/facilitates of:

•  Cold Storage,
•  Dry Warehouse,
•  Instant Quick Freeze (IQF),
•  modern Quality Control lab and other processing facilities for fruits and vegetables.

Mega food parks are based on the “hub and spoke” model

• One Central Processing Centre (CPC) as the hub
• Multiple Primary Processing Centres (PPC) that supply raw material to the hub
• main feature of this scheme is cluster based approach; envisages a well-defined agri/ horticultural-processing zone containing state-of-the art processing facilities with support infrastructure and well-established supply chain.
•  takes harvested crops or butchered animal products and uses these to produce long shelf-life food products.
• The objective of the scheme is to link farm produce to the market by bringing together farmers, processors and retailers. Mega Food Park is an inclusive concept that aims at establishing the direct linkages from the farm to processing to consumer markets.

WHY MFP NEEDED IN INDIAN CONTEXT

                        India’s position as a major food producer: India ranks 1st in the production of – milk, ginger, banana, guava, papaya, mango etc. It ranks 2nd in the production of rice, wheat, potato, sugarcane, cashew nut, tea etc. It is among the top 5 countries in the production of coffee, tobacco, spices, seeds etc. With such a huge raw material base, we can easily become the leading supplier of food items in the world.

                 Resource advantage of India : Different soil types and different climate types for cultivation of diverse food crops, long coastal line suitable for fishing, huge resource of domestic animals etc.

                     Unemployment/Disguised employment: Agriculture sector in India is not creating much employment opportunities(small landholdings,monsoon vagaries) and rural distress need more diversified approaches to raise agriculture income . Farmers face risk from bad weather and from fluctuating prices.

                   Migration : Due to rural distress and negative returns from agriculture rural people migrates to urban areas and led to unplanned urbanization and slums/social problems in cities

            Food inflation : Due to lack of supportive infrastructures in rural areas(cold stores,warehoused) led to of wastage of food(due to short shelf life)

                          Future driver of Indian growth: Food processing corresponds to around 10% of GDP in agriculture-manufacturing sector. It has potential for more.

Benifits of MFPS

• Modern infrastructure, created by MFPS, will arrest post-harvest losses of horticultural and non-horticultural produce and provide impetus to the growth of food processing sector.
• will help in providing better prices to farmers
• Reduce wastage of perishables, help in attaining food security.
• Because of long shelf life, farmers can diversify their products and income sources.
• Add value to agricultural produce and Processed food can be exported. This may help us in getting foreign exchange reserves.
• Create huge opportunities for entrepreneurship and employment for the youth of the State.  Food processing industries can absorb a major share of workers from the agriculture sector, who face disguised unemployment. It can lead to better productivity and GDP growth.
• common facilities under one roof will reduces operational cost.
• will provide efficient supply chain management from farm gate to retail outlet.
• Food entrepreneur can establish backward linkages (with farmers) and forward linkage (with retailers)
• Will generate direct indirect jobs within rural areas; will reduce rural-urban migration; unplanned urbanization and will ultimately solve slums/social problems in cities.

MAJOR ISSUES

• Funding the project, banks loans are not flexible and charged high interest rates that are usually associated with infrastructure projects.
• biggest issue in implementing the scheme has been the availability of land and the long-drawn process to change its use from agriculture to industrial land
• Some states have also strict land ceiling and sub leasing laws, which makes the role of the state government critical for the project to get started.

      GOVERNMENT INITIATIVES

National Mission- on Food Processing (NMFP)

on 1st April 2012:  implementation through States/UTs. The NMFP envisages establishment of a National Mission as well as corresponding Missions in the State and District level. The basic objective of NMFP is decentralization of implementation of food processing related schemes for ensuring substantial participation of State Governments/UTs. The mission is expected to improve the Ministry’s outreach significantly in terms of planning, supervision, monitoring of various schemes apart from playing a more meaningful role in policy formation.

Mega food parks: The Scheme of Mega Food Park aims at providing a mechanism to link agricultural production to the market by bringing together farmers, processors and retailers so as to ensure maximizing value addition, minimizing wastages, increasing farmers’ income and creating employment opportunities particularly in rural sector. The Mega Food Park Scheme is based on “Cluster” approach.

Modernization of abattoirs : The scheme aims at providing facilities for scientific and less painful slaughtering, chilling, effluent treatment plant, by-product utilization, water and power with required sanitary / phyto sanitary conditions for modernization of abattoirs. Modernization of abattoirs will also augment essential supply base of hygienic raw material to the meat processing industry, both for domestic consumption and exports, besides discouraging unauthorized slaughtering. Scheme of Setting up/ Modernization of Abattoirs provides for induction of private capital, better technology, backward and forward linkages.

Total 42 Mega Food Parks have been sanctioned by the Government for setting-up in the country. Currently, 25 projects are under implementation, Expression of Interest (EoI) was invited on all India basis on 10.02.2014 with the last date of 31.07.2014 to fill up vacancies. Ministry received 72 proposals and after going through a stringent and transparent process of scrutiny, 17 suitable proposals from 11 States of the country have been selected and approved for implementation. These Mega Food Park will provide a big boost to the growth of the food processing sector in the concerned state, help in providing better price to farmers, reduce wastage of perishables, add value to the agricultural produce and create huge employment opportunities especially in rural areas. These will also help in stabilizing prices of food products and contain inflation in the country.