Time for Agriculture to Metamophose in Agribusiness

A significant worldwide trend in public policy in recent years has been to disengage decades of direct government involvement in the agricultural sector. Price supports, input subsidies, and publicly owned agriculture-related institutions have been increasingly dismantled in favor of private market determination of prices and other incentives. Contributing to this trend toward free market economies are the growing global efforts to liberalize trade by lowering tariffs, harmonizing other standards, and facilitating foreign direct investment. While the short-term adjustments to increased competition are recognized as potentially painful, it is generally agreed that medium to long-term gains more than compensate. Nevertheless, in a very real sense, the adjustment to removal of both domestic support structures and barriers to external competition may be especially painful for smaller producers, a group which is often the target of poverty alleviation measures. Indian food-processing sector is undergoing rapid transformation. As the economy of the country moves on the path of development, agricultural sector evolves from traditional subsistence level farming to commercial agriculture producing high value and processed products. There is high potential demand in the domestic as well as export market. On the supply side, with vast arable land and agro-climatic diversity, India has the potential to be a food basket of the world. With this interaction of demand and supply forces the food processing sector has the potential to be the driver of economic growth and enhance rural incomes. Food Processing Industry is widely recognized as a 'sunrise industry' with a vision to make India the Food Basket of the world, achieve what has been achieved in the field of computer technology