TAD NewsDesk, Houston: The relationship between India and the US can be further strengthened by the collaboration of agriculture and food processing sector. The statement was made in the webinar ‘India- Arkansas Partnership: Food Processing, Logistics and Manufacturing’, by Arkansas State Governor Asa Hutchinson.
He said that the alliance would be beneficial for both the economies and added,
“We have laid an incredible foundation for the future. And that foundation is based on our commitment to democracy, our mutual love for entrepreneurship, business and trade.”
The webinar was hosted by the government of India in which Pushpa Subrahmanyam, Secretary Food Processing Industries, India, and Consul General of India in Houston Aseem R Mahajan participated.
Governor Hutchinson talked about his visit to India in October 2019,
“We met several companies during our “Incredible India visit”, ranging from textile to steel to technology…With agriculture being our number one economic driver, food processing is natural for us, followed by the steel industry. We have major steel mills like Big River Steel, Nucor-Yamato Steel Company.”
He also commented on big industries including the aerospace,
“The aerospace and defense industry is another major part of our economy. Lockheed Martin, Dassault Falcon, Aerojet Rocketdyne, Raytheon Missile Systems, General Dynamics, and others. Big companies like Tyson and Walmart that have significant investment and partnership in India are located here.”
Governor Hutchinson also specifically talked about the significance of the Indo American community in Arkansas who contributes to all major fields, including medicine and education.
Consul General Mahajan also contributed to the discourse by supporting Governor Hutchinson’s comment, “We deeply value Governor Hutchinson’s support to strengthen economic ties, as a result of which eight major Indian companies have invested over USD 392 million in Arkansas creating around 1,700 jobs in areas like information technology, manufacturing and engineering. The objective of today’s webinar is to highlight the immense potential and opportunities for companies in both countries to invest and build fruitful partnerships for mutual benefit.”
Secretary Subrahmanyam provided an overview of food processing in India and said
“Food processing is considered one among the champion sectors in India with policy shifts including measures to remove bottlenecks, fast track investments by fiscal measures and a better facilitating environment.”
She also added,
“Today is a watershed moment in the Food processing industry, we are launching a second wave of liberalization in the country, the agriculture sector is liberated from regulations, liberalizing the marketing ecosystem, enabling contract farming in India and removing sealing on storage for agriculture commodities.”
Last week, the Indian government had introduced the three very controversial bills and had said it would revolutionize the agriculture and farming industry. The three bills are:
- The Farmers’ Produce Trade and Commerce Bill, 2020
- The Farmers Agreement of Price Assurance and Farm Services Bill, 2020
- The Essential Commodities Bill 2020
The bills will affect the agricultural scenario in a lot of ways.
Secretary Subrahmanyam also said,
“The Government of India has financial subsidies to set up manufacturing units in the country, a dedicated fund provided through the Ministry to promote agriculture in rural areas and concessions for investment in this sector. Also promotes huge infrastructure for plug and play units to come up, such as mega-food parks and mini-food parks. We hope that investments from Arkansas and the US will deepen further and enable us to forge stronger collaborative roles with the help of the Food Processing.”
The panel which participated in the webinar included the following members:
- Secretary of Commerce & AEDC Executive Director Michael Preston from Arkansas.
- Principal Secretary Industries, Maharashtra.
- Venugopal Reddy, Principal Secretary Industries, Punjab.
- Alok Shekhar, Managing Director and CEO of Invest India.
- Deepak Bagla, vice president, corporate affairs, Americas, Mahindra Group.
- Ridhika Batra, senior director of Tyson Foods Todd Menotti.
