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Karnataka’s organic food display to bring innovative ready-to-eat and -serve products to fore
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Thursday, 19 January, 2023, 08 : 00 AM [IST]
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Nandita Vijay, Bengaluru
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Karnataka’s Department of Agriculture, which is hosting the fourth edition of the ‘Millets and Organics-International Trade Fair’ between January 20 and 22, 2023, at the Tripura Vasini Palace Grounds is expected to see a slew of novel ready-to-eat and -serve products. This is in an effort to accelerate the pace of cultivation and consumption of millets in the daily diet of people as part of the International Year of Millets.
Millets are the most common organically cultivated grain. Most organic products are millet based. The fair will feature an exhibition of around 300 stalls of more than 110 companies and an international pavilion with organisations from various countries. There will also be farmer workshops, conferences and food courts featuring millets and organic food.
There will be free stalls provided for start-ups and a 50% discount offered for women entrepreneurs. The international pavilion will include participants from South Korea, Germany, Uganda, the UK, Malaysia and the Netherlands. Additionally, there will be stalls featuring produce from Kerala, Maharashtra, Bihar, and Andhra Pradesh.
As a precursor to the event, the state government organised a walkathon held on January 14 at Cubbon Park to raise awareness on millets, organics and natural farming.
The two-day event will also focus on conservation and management of soil and water and agri-ecosystem, improve supply chain and infrastructure for post-harvest, simplification and authentication, enforce quality control, branding, labelling and packaging of organic millet produce.
According to Agriculture Minister B C Patil, the 4th edition of the Millets & Organics – International Trade Fair 2023 is being held in collaboration with Karnataka State Agricultural Produce Processing and Export Corporation Limited (KAPPEC) and International Competence Centre for Organic Agriculture (ICCOA).
Further, there will be an international conference on ‘Millets, Organic and Natural Farming: Opportunities Amidst Challenges’. There will be a workshop to get farmers introduced to beneficial scientific developments in the organics, millets and natural farming sectors, according to Patil.
Further, there will be buyer-seller meets that aim to connect the wholesale and bulk buyers across India directly with the farmers and producers to facilitate trade deals and new market opportunities, including exports. There will be displays of smart agricultural practices and policies of the state. Besides an expansive food court will have sales of millets and organic crops delicacies.
The state is a hub for millets covering finger millets, little millets, sorghum or jowar, pearl millets, foxtail millet, kodo millet besides maize and barley which are coarse cereals grown in dry regions of the state.
In addition, the state government launched the Karnataka Organic Farming Policy 2017, in order to enable the next level of development in organic farming. This is a revised version of its earlier policy in 2014. The key objective was to bring organic farming into the mainstream and transform agriculture in Karnataka into a sustainable remunerative occupation enabling production of nutritious food by promoting eco-friendly organic farming and marketing systems. The policy strategies included organic farming in mainstream agriculture, focus on region- and season-specific crops to increase farm output and income. Such diverse farming according to the government has maximised production, productivity and promotion of nutra-cereals.
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