Role of technology and innovations
ANANTHA PADMANABHAN: Alfa Laval has been in food processing since inception, since the time our founder, Gustaf de Laval, invented the first cream and milk separator.
I appreciate the thought of Dr Kanodia that food processing is a bridge. My personal view is that we have to make the bridge shorter and get closer to the producer.
Apart from bringing the processing industry closer to the producer, we also should open up the market for new technologies which will add value to the products and make them of international quality. This will also open up our opportunities for export market.
We can learn from the White Revolution which Dr Kurien of NDDB had launched. There processing was taken close to the farmers which brought about a dramatic change in their quality of life, as well as in the availability of milk in the country. It also helped the industry bring in new processing technologies to add value to the basic product.
When I started my work at Alfa Laval, one of the first projects where I worked was the installation of a chilling centre close to Bhubaneswar, where Alfa Laval worked with NDDB. Alfa Laval has developed technologies worldwide and brought them to India. India today is a competence hub for Alfa Laval worldwide.
It is a disappointment that India has not yet fully absorbed the technology to develop the quality of production and product variety, compared to our neighbours like Sri Lanka and South East Asian countries. The food processing sectors there produce very high quality of food and are quite export-oriented, which means that the domestic markets there also access high-quality products.
DILIP RATH: Many dairy cooperatives need to replace their ageing infrastructure, built during Operation Flood times. Dairy is also looking at new technologies, which would save energy and be more efficient in terms of water and power consumption and complying with the food laws, all of which would require investment in processing infrastructure. We also see a lot private processors making investment into capacities. There the issue is whether they have invested in connecting with the farmers in the villages and in transparent and fair milk procurement systems.
Neelkanth Mishra: There are catalysts emerging as Dr Rath mentioned that 60 per cent of milk produced in India does not leave its village. The primary reason is that it is not viable for farmers to carry it out on kaccha roads – time, spillage, spoilage (no chilling) and so on. Even in 2011, only 68 per cent households had access to wires, and the percentage of households that had more than 12-14 hours of electricity was much smaller. Today, even in UP and Bihar, villages have 20 plus hours of electricity. Percentage of house holds accessing electricity is now above 85 per cent and the target, from the Saubhagya scheme, is to push it to 95-100 per cent by December 2018. Electricity supply allows the farmer a lot more freedom to chill things, to process things in a small way.
Also with five lakh kilometres of rural roads built at a small capex cost (Rs 40 lakh/km) against a National Highway road (Rs 15 crore/km), India has connected 200 million people in 1,10,000 villages to the mainstream economy for the first time.
ANANTHA PADMANABHAN: Coconut processing is something that is done in Sri Lanka, Philippines and Thailand. We are focusing more on virgin coconut oil. You heat the coconut milk in a pan and then the oil floats on the top, which is high quality. That process needs heat and that oil is oxidised with lesser shelf life. Today the same quality of oil could be made from coconut milk where the cream is separated, and converted into oil. The whole process happens under very low temperatures and under hygienic conditions. The price of this oil goes up almost four or five times by the time it reaches the market. It becomes a high-value product. We have our first project happening in Coimbatore. Another interesting thing is in production of Amla (gooseberry) juice, building a very modern plant with technology adaptation.