Conference on Capacity building for SPS Measures
Towards Global Competitiveness in the Food Processing Sector
Monday, 12 September 2005 : Hotel Taj Residency, Lucknow

Conference report

India Development Foundation, in association with Confederation of Indian Industry organised a workshop on capacity building for Sanitary and Phyto-Sanitary Measures. The workshop was attended by representatives of food processing firms, government departments for agriculture and food processing, researchers and autonomous bodies working in this filed. The chief guest for the day was Mr. N.C. Bajpei, Agriculture Production Commissioner, Government of Uttar Pradesh.

The aim of the workshop was to create awareness among the food-processing industry regarding the quality and hygiene standards that any firm exporting or wanting to export its product must comply with. Countries are allowed to impose these standards under the SPS Agreement. The workshop aimed at educating the food exporters about the gains in store if they adopt these quality norms. It also talked about the problem associated with such procedures and possible set of solutions available to the exporters.

At the beginning of the session Mr. K.C. Girotra, Vice-Chairman, CII UP State Council and Dr. A.U. Khan from IDF welcomed the participants. Mr. Girotra spoke about the need for adopting better quality standards, specially by small and medium enterprises. Pointing towards India as the largest producer of many food products with low processing levels, he emphasised the need of adding value to final output. Dr. Khan briefed the participants on the work done by IDF in this area. He also thanked the sponsors, British High Commission, for enabling this exercise.

IDF has compiled information on these standards for the industry. This includes the list of standards imposed by various countries. The list is available for different commodity groups. There is also information available regarding the various issues related to any sector and the research work done. Further, IDF has made all this information available in a workbook, CD-ROM and also on a web-site. In order to reach a larger set of people, all the information has been translated into five local languages. These are Marathi, Urdu, Hindi, Bengali and Tamil. The Hindi version of the book was released by the chief guest. IDF, in collaboration with CII, is also organising such capacity building exercises in different parts of the country. The Lucknow workshop was the third in this row. Before this IDF has done similar training workshops for food processing industry in Marathi at Pune and in Urdu at Srinagar.

Applauding the efforts of IDF, the chief guest, Mr. Bajpei expressed his happiness and satisfaction at being present at such a relevant conference. Quality of our products has become more important, especially in the post-liberalisation era and the need of better standards is well taken. Yet SMEs have to know how to implement these. It is here that such a conference becomes highly relevant. More so because adopting better standards would be beneficial for domestic consumer also. He hoped that the conference will equip industry to implement these standards.The inaugural session ended with a vote of thanks by Mr. Kiron Pathak, ex-chairperson of CII, UP.

The second session was the technical session with a focused and detailed discussion on the need of sanitary measures and their current status in India. The session began with a filling of a questionnaire by those present. This aimed at getting some information on the awareness level of the participants on the SPS issues.

Following this, Dr. A.U. Khan gave an introductory presentation on the basic issues involved with SPS Agreement. He started with briefly describing the historical perspective of the agreement. He then went on to describe the main features of the agreement. In the end he spoke about the current situation in India and how the food processing industry can gain from adopting higher hygiene standards. He also outlined some of the steps industry can take in order to achieve higher standards. Presentation

Dr. M.D. Singh from Central Institute of Subtropical Horticulture spoke about the SPS requirements in the fresh fruit sector. Dr. Singh agreed that there is some kind of protectionism involved with arbitrary high standards, but also emphasised that adopting higher standards is very important for reaching our export potential. He then spoke in detail on the hygiene standards to be followed in post-harvest and packaging stages.

Mr. M.N. Lari, Managing Director of Abdullah Fresh Foods Pvt Ltd told the participants about the product identification and traceability in the meat supply chain. He said that the food processing industry has three main stakeholders: farmers, processors and consumer; and that the last one of these is the most powerful in the current scenario. Consumers expect to know all about the product, from the farm to the fork, and hence the need of supply chain management. Mr. Lari emphasised the need for capacity building at the farm level. Presentation

Next to address the gathering was Mr. R.K. Pathak, former director, Central Institute of Subtropical Horticulture. He spoke on protocol for post harvest management of mango. He gave the audience detailed information on standards to be followed for mango and the benefits accruing by it. He spoke about pre-harvest management, harvesting, pest management, packaging, storage and transportation. Presentation

Ms. K. Bakhshi from IDF was next to address the conference. She spoke mainly about the work done by her organisation in capacity building for the food processing industry. Taking the example of mango, she elaborated the information available in the workbook and CD for the audience. She also pointed out how this information can be utilised by the industry.