Growers urge SL government to formulate proper local production plan to produce pulses
Food, specially that of pulses, has to be produced in a systematic way to be of quality that should match international standards, Sunanda Weerasinghe, President, Sri Lanka Food Processors Association said at the opening of Profood, Propack Exhibition 2014 held last week at the BMICH Colombo.
She appealed to Basil Rajapaksa, Minister of Economic Development who was the Chief Guest at the function, to have a structured plan to produce pulses in large quantities, as there is arable land lying unused for the last 30 years.
On the sidelines of the event, Ms. Weerasinghe told the Business Times these pulses are now imported from countries like India, Thailand and Burma (Myanmar) and though they are not as tasty as Sri Lankan produce, they are processed to international standards.
She said that if the government in a systematic way uses the available land to cultivate this produce in large quantities and implement a system to process them to international standards, Sri Lanka could export and stop imports, saving a large amount of foreign exchange.
At the event, she said that they have the right partnership with food processors, packaging and agribusiness companies and obtain scientific expertise provided by the Institute of Food Technology and well supported by the Universities of Peradeniya and Sri Jayawardenapura.
She said that they do their best to educate and upgrade their food industry people and arrange seminars, workshops constantly to educate them on food hygiene and food regulations. They are having four workshops concurrently along with the exhibition on how to use new technologies like nanotechnology, etc. and also some of these programmes are conducted by GIZ (International Cooperation for Sustainable Development by the German Government) for the North, East and Uva regions and later extended to the other parts of the country.
One of the main new features at this year’s exhibition was the inclusion of SMEs and this section accommodated more than 30 stalls. Aruna Weerakoon, Chairman, National Agribusiness Council, one of the co-partners of the Exhibition told this newspaper that the stalls to SMEs were given free and in addition these participants were also provided free meals and accommodation for the three days.