Union Minister for Commerce and Industry, Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution and Textiles, Shri Piyush Goyal has said that India offers the unbeatable combination of talent, scale and skill to the world. He was interacting with the students after visiting the Knowledge part at Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Chennai.

 

Shri Goyal said that the campus of IIT-Chennai was truly outstanding. It is a piece of art because science alone cannot define this place. Science is an enabler, art is in all of your minds which also helps come up with simple solutions for our day-to-day problems, he added.

 

The Minister spoke about India’s immense innovation potential and said that the World would also want to engage with sustainability and newer technologies at an affordable price and they would look towards India for it because of our innovation and talent pool. 'Sustainability, energy efficiency, electric mobility coupled with India’s manufacturing skills, every innovation and technology developed here has a huge market', he added.

 

Shri Goyal said that India offered a huge market of over a billion people who are now connected to the whole world through television and smart phones. India offers the largest aspirational population, he added.

 

The Minister noted that world today recognises that India’s time to shine has arrived. India’s demographic dividend, our large young population is another factor that is our strength, he said. Countries across the globe are today wooing us and is attracted to us for the talent pool and skillset India has to offer, he added.

 

Addressing the students, Shri Goyal said that the nation would be grateful to every contribution of our youth and our students. He observed that the scale of India’s aspirational population can help them get the economies of scale, can power the technologies they are producing and can economise the output of their work.

 

Shri Goyal urged the students to have a bold vision and big ambition. 'We as a country should have Big, Heavy, Audacious Goals. It abbreviates to BHAG. We all need to participate in the journey as we work our way towards becoming a developed nation and run collectively towards this goal', he added.

 

The Minister said that innovation is elementary, simple thinking leading to solutions of a range of problems that can help our country and the world and students can all contribute immensely to these solutions. As we power our way into Azadi ka Amrit Kaal, these 25 years are going to define India and its future, he noted.

Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal on Sunday expressed confidence that the country will achieve the export target for goods and services to USD 2 trillion by 2030. The minister was speaking at the Exporters Conclave held at Chennai.

 

Goyal emphasised on sustaining the export momentum and said that he is confident that Indian exports will be able to wither the global headwinds and will surpass growth in exports by a 'big' margin.

 

He also said that by 2047, the country will become a USD 30 trillion economy with 25 per cent share in exports.

 

'By the year 2030, exports from India will be USD 2 trillion,' he said.

 

The industry participants were assured that the government is committed to addressing the issues raised by them.

 

Speaking at the event, A Sakthivel, President, Federation of Indian Export Organisations (FIEO) said that Indian exporters have good opportunities for exports to Russia and the EU despite recessionary trends visible there.

 

He said that there would be about USD 8-10 billion additional exports to Russia in the next 12 months and USD 15-20 billion to the EU.

 

He requested the minister for introducing the Exports Refinance Facility for banks so as to refinance them at the repo rate to the extent of credit extended to the export sector.

 

The levy of GST on exports freight has added to exporters liquidity woes, Sakthivel said.

 

In the meeting, exporters flagged several issues related to the rising cost of raw materials and subdued demand in certain key export markets and the need for more support to the exporters in this difficult time.

 

Other issues discussed during the session include need for higher interest subsidy for exporters, extension of benefits for export to Russia under Rupee payment; higher freight costs; withdrawal of 50 per cent duty of export of law-grade Iron Ore and non tariff barriers faced by domestic exporters in the markets of EU, Japan, and China.

The district export action plan (DEAP) of Papum Pare, under the central government’s ‘district as export hub’ initiative, was finalised here on Thursday, with all stakeholders unanimously selecting turmeric, large cardamom and ginger as potential exportable products of the district.

 

Papum Pare is the only district in Arunachal Pradesh to have been selected in the first phase of the Centre’s initiative.

 

The produces were chosen during a meeting among the District Export Promotion Committee, progressive farmers, entrepreneurs, and other stakeholders here on Thursday.

 

Addressing the participants, Deputy Commissioner Sachin Rana, who along with Kolkata (WB)-based Deputy Director General of Foreign Trade Arjun Upadhya, chaired the meeting, urged the farmers and the entrepreneurs to 'work parallelly, in tandem with the government.'

 

'Knowledge about the export business can be obtained by exposure and interaction with well-established export houses,' he said, and urged the participants to be 'committed.'

 

Upadhya presented a brief introduction of the ‘district as export hub’ initiative, and informed that 'this initiative will be based on a five-year programme, and adequate funds will be allocated for each district.'

 

Trade Development Officer Tai Arun dwelt on the DEAP. 'The export action plan envisages establishment of an import-export cell at the DC office here, common facility centres at the Naharlagun railway station and the Donyi Polo airport, export-related training and exposure tours, conducting buyers-sellers meets, creating e-markets for promotion of locally grown agri-horti produces, marketing of locally grown agri-horti produces, organising an investment summit, ‘Invest@Yupia’, biennially to attract investments for export and foreign direct investment, etc.'

 

Guwahati (Assam)-based APEDA Business Development Manager Saju Adhikary spoke on ‘the role of the APEDA for export promotion and financial assistance’. He urged the progressive farmers and entrepreneurs to 'get registration-cum-membership certificate and avail the benefits from APEDA.'

 

Matters relating to lack of market, logistic support, cold storage facility, testing labs, packaging facility, documentation, and certification were also discussed during the meeting.

 

Besides selecting turmeric, large cardamom and ginger as potential exportable products, the participants decided to establish common facility centres with provisions of dryer unit, testing labs, and packaging.

 

Twenty-two members, including HoDs and members of farmer-producer organisations, attended the meeting.

The Good Food Institute India (GFI India), the central expert organization and convening body in the ‘smart protein’ sector kicked off their annual flagship event, the Smart Protein Summit today in collaboration with the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce & Industry (FICCI) and with support from the Ministry of Food Processing Industries (MoFPI), The Agricultural and Processed Food Products Export Development Authority (APEDA), and India’s Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) Eat Right India initiative.

 

Opening the event, Varun Desphande, President, GFI Asia revealed plans for GFI India’s Centre for Nutritional Excellence with FICCI saying,'The challenges we face before us, in terms of food safety and security are growing. We think that smart protein – meat, eggs, and dairy made from plants, cells, and microorganisms – is one of our best bets for a more sustainable, secure, and just food supply.'

 

Given the World Health Organization’s warnings that we may soon be living in a post-antibiotic era due to antimicrobial resistance and that 75 per cent of infections are likely to be foodborne in the future, we need to transform our protein supply. Building on this, Siraj Hussain, FICCI Advisor and former Secretary, Agriculture, Government of India emphatically shared that, 'Smart protein may be a new concept, but it is a sector with immense global potential. FICCI is very excited to partner with GFI India to transform our food system. There’s an enormous opportunity for the smart protein sector to create linkages with Indian farmers and ensure that the protein supply comes from local producers.'

 

The last two years have seen encouraging developments in smart protein technologies, startups, and investments, as consumer appetite for sustainable alternatives to conventional animal proteins continues to grow. The Indian smart protein ecosystem has grown at a remarkable rate – from just a handful of stakeholders to a thriving sunrise sector with 50+ startups, 80+ supporting companies, investments poised to grow exponentially, and policy advancements beginning to take clear shape.

 

Speaking about this paradigm shift, Siraj Azmat Chaudhry, Past Chair, National Committee on Food Processing, FICCI, Former Chairman, Cargill India, and MD & CEO, NCML said, 'I see this as the revenge of the underdog. In India, there’s a saying, ‘ghar ki murgi dal barabar’ and now we have dals and pulses coming back to compete with meat! The growth of this sector will allow farmers to diversify from cereal crops to diverse protein rich crops like pulses and millets.'

 

 

Beyond producers, smart protein has the potential to improve dietary choices and nutrition for consumers as well. Closing out the inaugural address, Dr Sudhanshu, Secretary, APEDA said, 'Our citizens have the right to safe food. When we innovate with new products, they should be accessible to the common masses. Smart protein also provides a new platform for entrepreneurs to prosper and this way India can keep pace with global trends.'

 

Echoing his sentiments, Varun Desphande, President, GFI Asia reiterated the need to become Aatma Nirbhar in the smart protein arena as well. He said 'We have crop diversity, a globally competitive talent pool, and hundreds of people working on this opportunity – many of whom you see here in the room. We need an enabling policy environment for the sector to grow and thrive.'

 

The Smart Protein Summit has been designed by GFI India and FICCI to propel India to the forefront of the global race for smart protein innovation. Following the inaugural address, Deloitte partner Anand Ramanathan and Varun Dehspande unveiled for the first time, topline numbers on the market size and export potential of smart protein from a rigorous study by GFI India and Deloitte India. ‘The Smart Protein Economic Analysis’ delves deep into the smart protein economic opportunity for India, shedding light on avenues for job creation and India’s potential to become a leading manufacturer and supplier of raw materials, and equipment for smart protein globally by 2030.

 

As the most impactful platform for entrepreneurs, regulators, investors, policymakers, scientists, and other stakeholders in the smart protein sector, the summit then hosted two exciting sessions including the ‘Innovators Showcase’ where 5 startups pitched their ventures to 4 seasoned investors and ‘From Bench to Billions – nurturing biotech to mega scale' chaired by GS Krishnan, President, Association of Biotechnology Led Enterprises (ABLE). Emphasizing the role that India has to play in the global smart protein industry, GS Krishnan said, 'As you all know, India is one of the most sought after countries in terms of manufacturing capabilities – we need to understand how to capture this opportunity to grow the bioeconomy to its full potential. We project that India’s bioeconomy can grow from the 80 billion dollars it is valued at today to 300 billion dollars by 2030.'

 

Later in the day, a never seen before Smart Protein Tasting Tour brought together key collaborators, value-chain partners, and media to taste and experience many plant-based products on one single platform. Innovative startups across the smart protein category, including OatMlk, BVeg, Evo Foods, ProMeat, Mighty, Evolved Foods, Funny Nani, 1ness Foods, Soft Spot Foods, and more impressed the audiences with their ‘next generation’ products.

 

Smart protein is an essential pillar of this bioeconomy and over the course of the two day Summit, GFI India, FICCI, and all the event’s supporters aim to demonstrate just how valuable this burgeoning sector could be to India’s new green economy.

 

The Good Food Institute India (GFI India) is the central expert organization, thought leader, and convening body in the Indian ‘alternative protein’ or ‘smart protein’ sector. As part of an international network of nonprofits with partners in Brazil, Israel, U.S., Europe, and Asia Pacific, GFI India is on a mission to build a healthy, sustainable, and just global food system. Since our establishment in 2017, GFI India serves as the central thought leader and convening body in the space of plant-based, cultivated, and fermentation-based meat, eggs, and dairy that are collectively known as the ‘alternative protein’ or the ‘smart protein’ sector.

 

With unique insight across the scientific, policy, industry, and investment landscapes, we are using the power of food innovation and markets to accelerate the transition of the world’s food system toward alternative proteins. In building the sector from the ground up in India, we’re aiming to establish a model for its growth all across the developing world.

The Union Minister for Agriculture and Farmers Welfare, Narendra Singh Tomar has said that the Agriculture sector is the backbone of our country and our rural economy and agriculture have such strength that the country can easily overcome even the adverse situations.

 

The Indian Agriculture sector has shown this during the Covid pandemic. Government of India provided food security to 800 million people of the country, as well as helped friendly countries. Today we are in the first or second place in the world in terms of most of the agricultural produce. Despite this, there are some challenges before the Agriculture sector. There is a need to work in this direction to transform agriculture into advanced farming, technology should be used in agriculture and its continuity should be maintained.

 

Tomar said this in his virtual address to the National Conference on Enhancing Agricultural Productivity on the topic ‘Integration of Improved Seeds and Agri Inputs', organised by the Associated Chamber of Commerce and Industry of India (ASSOCHAM) in New Delhi. Tomar said that the stronger and more profitable the Agriculture sector is, the stronger the country will be.

 

There is a need to consider the challenges facing Agriculture today. In spite of all the favourable conditions, the area under farming and its profit and loss depend a lot on the nature. People's curiosity and attachment towards agriculture should increase, agriculture should be attractive for the next generation and farmers can be retained for farming, more work needs to be done in this direction. Tomar said that the government is working to reduce the gap between farmers and the market, providing infrastructure in rural areas and eliminate the role of middlemen.

 

He said that the number of small farmers in the country is more, who have small acreage and do not have money for investment; for such farmers, the Central Government is setting up 10,000 new FPOs, for which a provision of Rs 6,865 crore has been made and small farmers are being mobilised. It is the effort of the government that farmers should do group farming, so that the input costs can be reduced, production quality improves and small farmers can shift to remunerative crops and get the price for their produce on their own terms. FPOs can also process products. For this, the government has extended loans up to Rs 2 crore without guarantee.

 

Tomar said that to reduce import dependence in oilseeds, the Oil Palm Mission has been started with a provision of Rs 11,000 crore. Twenty eight lakh hectares of land in the country is suitable for oil palm cultivation. The prospects are high in the Northeast. Provision of Rupees one lakh crore Agri Infra Fund has been made for creation of infrastructure in the villages. Provision has also been made for special packages for Animal Husbandry, Fisheries and Medicinal Farming.

 

Tomar said that Government of India is also working on the Digital Agriculture Mission, in which farmers, banks and other institutions will be linked, crop assessment made, data collected and crop losses will also be assessed with technology. Mapping will be done in such a way that farmers across the country can be advised through State Governments as to where and which consumption is there, accordingly profit can be earned by producing as much needed. There will be no panic and there will be no loss. Government has also emphasized on Natural Farming, in this direction we all need to work ahead.

Union Minister for Commerce and Industry, Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution and Textiles, Shri Piyush Goyal has said that PM GatiShakti National Master Plan has the potential to save over Rs. 10 Lakh Crore annually by improving logistics efficiency. He was addressing the National Workshop on PM GatiShakti held to mark the first anniversary of the roll out of the National Master Plan, in New Delhi today. The workshop focussed on the progress and achievements made by PM GatiShakti till date and the way forward.

 

Shri Goyal said that PM GatiShakti is increasingly being used in the social sector for better infrastructure development, thereby, taking fruits of technology to every citizen of the country and improving ease of life for the common man. The Minister said that PM GatiShakti would define India's future in the years to come. Quoting the Prime Minister, Shri Narendra Modi, he said that PM GatiShakti National Master Plan would lend both 'Gati' and 'Shakti' to India's efforts in Infrastructure development.

 

The National Master Plan will transform the way we work and the outcomes of our work and will drive economic development, Shri Goyal said. He observed that the entire nation has come together, transcending political differences to use PM GatiShakti to the best possible extent. The Minister expressed confidence that PM GatiShakti NMP would find a place in history as a powerful intervention that spurred rapid growth and development in the country. We look upon PM GatiShakti as s service to the nation and society, he said.

 

Shri Goyal opined that the anniversary celebrations must be used as an opportunity to visualize and conceive plans for the future. He asked all stakeholders to envision out of box ways to utilize PM GatiShakti for better, more economical and time bound infrastructure planning.

 

The Minister expressed confidence that PM GatiShakti would help bring in balanced, inclusive, equitable development in the country by helping remote areas, especially those in the North East undertake integrated infrastructure planning and close development gaps.

 

The Minister referred to the Prime Minister’s Development Initiative for North East Region (PM-DevINE) scheme launched yesterday and said that by dovetailing PM GatiShakti into the scheme would help utilize resources much more efficiently. Shri Goyal said that the whole of the government was working in tandem to ensure the best possible use of PM GatiShakti. He added that industry, business and social sector had welcomed PM Gati with open arms.

 

The Prime Minister, Shri Narendra Modi launched PM GatiShakti on 13.10.21 for integrated planning of infrastructure and synchronized project implementation across all concerned Central Ministries, Departments and State Governments.

 

PM GatiShakti is a transformative approach for integrated and holistic planning across concerned Ministries/Departments to improve multimodal connectivity, and logistics efficiency and address critical gaps for the seamless movement of people, and goods, with a focus on minimizing disruptions and ensuring timely completion of works.

 

It provides for an integrated platform, the National Master Plan, where all the economic zones and their multimodal connectivity infrastructure are depicted, along with physical linkages to promote a comprehensive and integrated multimodal national network of transportation and logistics to create efficiency gains and avenues for further developments, value addition and creating employment opportunities.

 

It may be noted that in the last 8 years, Capital Expenditure has seen over 4 times increase from 1.75 lac crores in 2014 to 7.5 lac crores in 2022. The development of 7.582 kms new roads, 2500 kms of new petroleum & gas pipelines, 29,040 circuits kms, and 200 million tonnes of cargo being handled by India’s railway network have been constructed adopting PM GatiShakti’s approach.

 

Through the mechanism of PM National Master Plan 197 critical infrastructure gap projects have been identified and examined in sectors namely, the Ministry of Steel, Coal, Fertilizer as well as Food and Public Distribution under PM GatiShakti to improve logistics efficiency. Over 1300 inter-ministerial issues were resolved in the 11 months through the PMG Portal integrated with the National Master Plan.

 

The Minister also launched the Logistics Ease Across Different States (LEADS) 2022 survey report.  The LEADS is an indigenous data-driven index to assess logistics infrastructure, services, and human resources across all 36 States and UTs.

 

By engaging with various end-user stakeholders, the LEADS acts as a feedback mechanism on the existing logistic capacities and draws recommendations for further improvement. The LEADS further uses the feedback evaluation to classify states on the scale of logistics ease currently present among them.

 

The LEADS 2022 has garnered more than 6500 responses from more than 2100 respondents across the country. Unlike the previous versions of LEADS which were based on ranking systems for all states, LEADS 2022 has adopted a classification-based grading, states have been now classified under four categories viz coastal states, hinterland/landlocked states, north-eastern states, and Union Territories. For the assessment of how well a State or UT has performed in comparison to the Top State/UT within the specific cluster.

 

Three performance categories namely, Achievers: States/UTs achieving 90% or more percentage, Fast Movers: States/UTs achieving percentage scores between 80% to 90%, and Aspirers: States/UTs achieving percentage scores below 80% have been made.

 

The LEADS 2022 survey report would assist PM GatiShakti National Master Plan (PMGS-NMP) and National Logistics Policy (NLP) to perform a network mapping of logistics infrastructure, services, and regulatory environment enabling State Governments to identify and fill the gaps and achieve data-driven multimodal connectivity. LEADS continues to act as a guiding & bridging mechanism for the identification of interventions enhancing logistics efficiency at State/UTs.

The Indian government has decided to permit duty-free exports of fully broken rice consignments for which letters of credit (LCs) were opened before September 8, when it banned its shipments. The measure follows representations from exporters and traders.

 

In a notification issued late on Wednesday evening, the Directorate-General of Foreign Trade said 3.97 lakh tonnes (lt) of fully broken rice will be allowed for exports till the end of the current fiscal. Exporters, in particular, led by The Rice Exporters Association had written to the Commerce Ministry to allow nearly four lt of fully broken rice for which LCs had been opened but were stranded at ports or during transit.

 

'This is a welcome relief for the entire rice exporting community. In particular, African countries that depend on Indian broken rice will be thankful to the Centre. Not just that, a lot of consignments would have been wasted had this order not come,' said New Delhi-based exporter Rajesh Paharia Jain.

 

In his letter to the Commerce Ministry, TREA President BV Krishna Rao urged that duty-free exports of about four lt of fully broken rice be allowed, for which LCs had been opened well before September 9 when the ban came into force. Apart from banning broken rice, the Government imposed a 20 per cent export duty on non-basmati white rice.

 

The latest notification has been welcomed by the trade in general with M Madan Prakash, President, Agri Commodities Exporters Association, terming the development as 'great news'.

 

The DGFT said 3,97,627 tonnes of fully broken rice would be permitted for exports and it will be applicable for only LCs opened before September 8, when the curbs on rice exports were announced. It said the date of the message between the Indian or foreign bank and SWIFT date should also be before September 8.

 

The volume that will be allowed to be shipped will be distributed amongst applicants who had opened LCs before September 8, the notification said.

 

India came up with curbs on rice exports after the sowing of paddy in the kharif season dropped by about 5 per cent this year as deficient rains affected the cereal’s coverage. Besides, rice and paddy stocks with the Food Corporation of India (FCI) dropped to a three-year low.

 

As of October 1, rice stocks with the FCI were 20.46 million tonnes (mt) and those of unmilled paddy 11.82 mt.

 

Broken rice is mainly consumed by China, Vietnam and Senegal. China uses broken rice for noodles manufacturing and animal feed, while Vietnam uses it for noodles and wine-making. Senegal uses broken rice for a staple dish.

 

China has been a big buyer of Indian broken rice since 2020. Until then, it had imported hardly 1,000 tonnes. While last fiscal it imported 1.63 mt of rice with broken rice making up 96 per cent of it, this fiscal it has already bought 1.07 mt during the first four months.

 

The Union Minister for Agriculture and Farmers Welfare, Shri Narendra Singh Tomar has said that the Government of India, under the leadership of Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi, is working towards the development of villages-poor-& farmers and making their lives better. Prime Minister Shri Modi is constantly striving towards increasing the credibility of the country on the global political forum, expanding Make in India, conserving our heritage and taking Mother India to the pinnacle of ultimate glory. Under the leadership of PM, monumental work has been done in a planned manner towards ending inequalities and bringing the poor into the mainstream.

 

Shri Tomar said this in his address to the 8th General Meeting of MahaFPC in Pune today as the Chief Guest. Shri Tomar said that the development journey of any nation cannot be complete unless the poor of that country are free from inequality. Similar was the situation in the country, almost half of the population did not have bank accounts. Crores of families had no toilets, no electricity, no gas cylinders in their kitchen, no houses to live in. The Prime Minister took the initiative to remove these inequalities. The houses of the poor are being built under the PM Awas Yojana, toilets are being built for every family, Jan-Dhan accounts created, electricity provided under Saubhagya scheme, LPG cylinders supplied to every household through the Ujjwala scheme and food grains delivered to all villages. At the same time, work is being done to eliminate inequalities by providing livelihood to lakhs of sisters of poor families through Self-Help Groups.

 

Shri Tomar said that in 2015 the Prime Minister had said that farmers' income should be doubled. Towards this goal, the Central and State governments, along with FPOs and all other organizations related to Agriculture, worked together, which is benefiting the farmers of the country today. The income of lakhs of farmers has increased from more than double to five to ten times. Shri Tomar said that for the first time in the country a scheme has been launched which accords dignity to the farmers. Under the Pradhan Mantri Kisan Samman Nidhi (PM-Kisan) scheme, so far more than Rs 2 lakh crore has been deposited in the bank accounts of 11.5 crore farmers. Farmers of Maharashtra get Rs. 22.5 crore under this scheme. Not all farmers were getting the benefit of crop insurance scheme, for which the Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana was implemented, today crores of farmers across the country are benefitting. More than 50 lakh farmers in Maharashtra are covered in this scheme. Farmers losses across the country have been compensated through this scheme, worth claims amounting to Rs. 1.22 lakh crore.

 

He said that the government set up the Agri Infra Fund worth Rs. One lakh crore to boost agricultural infrastructure. Besides, packages worth Rs. 1.5 lakh crore have been rolled out for Agriculture and allied works in the villages. Projects worth Rs. 14,000 crores have already been approved from under the Agri Infra Fund. Its benefits will start percolating to the farmers in the coming days. Shri Tomar said that there are 86 percent small farmers in the country; in order to empower them 10,000 new FPOs are being constituted. The government is trying to provide all the necessary facilities to the farmers. There is a need to ramp up the transportation facility and ensure remunerative prices to the farmers for their produce. Work on digital agriculture is going on. When this is completed, the imbalance seen in the Agriculture sector will end, transparency will follow and the imbalance in the prices will be overcome. Besides, it will help provide advisories to farmers about new farming and plantation techniques and climate etc.

 

The FSSAI has issued a clarification with respect to application for vegan logo endorsement and stated that separate application needs to be submitted for different variants of the same product.

 

The clarification issued by the FSSAI says that the food authority will not consider a single application for different products.

 

The FSSAI’s clarification reads, 'It is to clarify that in case of the same product with multiple variants and two or more different products, a separate application for each variant/different product needs to be submitted.'

 

Also, the FSSAI has added that the payment needs to be done separately with each application for the vegan logo endorsement.

 

The vegan logo regulations were notified by the FSSAI in June this year. Accordingly in reference to Sub Regulation 5(2) of the FSS (Vegan Foods) Regulations, 2022, guidelines were issued in July for submission of applications for endorsement of vegan logo and format for the application for the same.

 

And after approval of the application, the food businesses will be eligible to use the vegan logo.

 

Dr. Harinder Singh Oberoi, Advisor, Standards, FSSAI, in a statement has said that FSSAI was in receipt of applications for vegan logo endorsement from various FBOs and it was observed that the food businesses were applying for endorsement of vegan logo for multiple variants of the same products and two or more different products under single application.

 

The vegan regulations define vegan food as ‘the food or food ingredient, including additives, flavourings, enzymes and carriers, or processing aids that are not products of animal origin and in which, at no stage of production and processing, ingredients, including additives, flavourings, enzymes and carriers, or processing aids that are of animal origin have been used.’

A buyer-seller meet to promote farm products of Chhattisgarh will be held at the Indira Gandhi Krishi Vishvavidyalaya (IGKV), Krishak Nagar, Raipur, on October 14.

 

The meet will take place during the international agriculture expo (Agri Carnival-2022) that will be held from October 14-18. The event aims to serve as a common platform to exchange ideas, technologies and research work done in the field of agriculture.

 

The agri-carnival is being organized under the joint aegis of the Chhattisgarh Agriculture Department, Chhattisgarh Biotech Promotion Society, International Rice Research Institute, Manila, NABARD, and the Agriculture and Processed Food Export Development Authority (APFEDA).

 

Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel will address the farmer’s convention programme on October 16.

 

As per reports, agriculture scientists of national and international repute, officials of food product companies, start-up entrepreneurs and progressive farmers will be attending the event.The carnival will also have a symposium on processing and export of minor forest produce.

 

Chhattisgarh Assembly Speaker Charandas Mahant will chair the inaugural event, which will be presided over by Agriculture Minister Ravindra Choubey.