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Union Minister of Food Processing Industry laid the foundation stone for First Maize based Mega Food Park in Kapurthala, Punjab.

About Food Park

• The food park to be set up on 55 acres, at the cost of ₹123 crore, will grind 500 metric tonnes maize per day using latest processing facilities.
• The unit will give a push to maize cultivation in Doaba region and lead to increased income for farmers.
• The Union government is providing a financial assistance of ₹50 crore for the project.
• The park will have facilities like multiple cold storage, deep freezer, warehouse, silos (to store grain), steam generation, for sorting and grading yard and food testing laboratory.
• The park will have three primary procurement centres at SBS Nagar, Hoshiarpur and Jalandhar with primary processing and storage facilities.

Maize

• Maize is a cereal and is an alternate to Jhona(paddy) and Kanak (wheat).
• Maize is rich in protein, provides nutritional requirements that India needs and Maize consumes much lesser water and could contain the problem of further water depletion.
• The productivity in India is 2.5 tonnes per hectare against the world average of 5.5 tonnes.

Mega Food Park

• Aims at providing a mechanism to link agricultural production to the market by bringing together farmers, processors and retailers so as to ensure maximizing value addition, minimizing wastage, increasing farmers’ income and creating employment opportunities particularly in rural sector.
• The Mega Food Park Scheme is based on Cluster approach and envisages a well-defined agree/ horticultural-processing zone containing state-of-the art processing facilities with support infrastructure and well-established supply chain.

Source : Pib

GS III : Major crops cropping patterns in various parts of the country, different types of irrigation and irrigation systems storage, transport and marketing of agricultural produce and issues and related constraints; e-technology in the aid of farmers.