The Union Minister of State for Food Processing Industries, Prahlad Singh Patel, stated that the Centre will encourage and promote not just the production of millets but also processed millet products for the global market.
Next year, i.e., 2023, is the International Year of Millets. India produces 40 per cent of the world’s millets. Our government has made tremendous efforts to promote millets and not just for production but also for processed millet foods for supplying to international markets, “said Patel.
Patel was speaking on the sidelines of the first Plant-Based Foods Summit organised by the Ministry of Food Processing Industries (MoFPI), Agriculture & Processed Food Products Export Development Authority (APEDA), and Plant Based Foods Industry Association (PBFIA).
In his speech, he batted for millets and spoke of the parameters and enabling factors by APEDA for millets and plant-based food and such processed food.
Our Ministry has been allotted over Rs. 10,000 crores for the promotion of this kind of food. The only condition is that the company should be Indian, “Patel said,” and he gave an example of several traditional Indian food items that just “need to be validated by scientific documentation of traditional practices”.