Timely and affordable finance for Farmer Producer Organisations (FPOs) along with farm-gate processing, preservation and integrated logistics is essential to strengthening agricultural value chains and expanding exports, said Chandra Sekhar Sakhamuri, IAS, Director, Department of Agricultural Marketing & Agri Business, Government of Tamil Nadu.
He was speaking at the Stakeholder Consultation on Strengthening Agri Export Logistics Through Integrated Warehousing and Value-Added Services organised jointly by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) and Central Warehousing Corporation (CWC) on the theme From Farm Gate to Global Markets Developing Integrated Logistics Solutions for India’s Agri Exporters.
Vishal Pratap Singh, IRS, Commissioner of Customs, Chennai-IV (Export) Commissionerate, CBIC highlighted processing value addition and organic and GI-tagged products to reduce wastage and expand exports. He also stressed priority clearance for perishables, Single Window Interface, self-sealing and Direct Port Entry.
Santosh Sinha, Managing Director, CWC highlighted scientific storage, cold chains, cargo handling and multimodal transportation. Mr H Manoj, Chief General Manager, NABARD, Tamil Nadu Regional Office noted around 300 NABARD-promoted FPOs representing approximately two lakh farmers in Tamil Nadu and called for stronger export linkages.
V K Pancham, Regional Director, Southern Region, FSSAI stressed food safety, cold-chain integrity and traceability while Mr Boopathiraja M, Deputy Chief Operations Manager (Freight Operations), Southern Railways, Chennai proposed commodity-specific corridors and rail-linked agri-export hubs.
S Chandramohan, Past Chairman, CII Tamil Nadu & Group President – Finance, TAFE outlined six priorities integrated agri-logistics hubs, commodity-specific corridors, infrastructure closer to farmers, value addition, supply-chain partnerships and outcome-based measurement.
Jaisinh Vaerkar, Co-Convenor, CII Tamil Nadu Agri & Food Processing Panel & Chairman, Thilais Masala delivered the concluding remarks.