Agriculture being the largest employment generator in India accounts for almost 50% of the country’s total workforce & is their primary source of livelihood.
World Trade Center Association (WTCA) agricultural committee in association with agro-industry bodies intend to be a catalyst to the food & agricultural industry in India. World Trade Center Chandigarh, a sub-community under WTCA is an active member of the agro committee. It focuses on the food and agribusiness.
It is well known that Punjab is the largest producer of rice, wheat, cereals and citrus fruits. It has evolved as a start-up hub for food & agriculture and has the largest food park in India. Interestingly, Punjab is also ranked No.1 by World Bank in Ease of Doing Business. Thus, considering the importance of agro business in Punjab, the community intends to set-up a mechanism and the platform to facilitate technology transfer & knowledge exchange.
Khair Ull Nissa, WTCA board member, member of food & agriculture committee, said, “World Trade Center fraternity has a network of many World Trade Centers which focus on agriculture and have the best practices for it. WTC Chandigarh is setting up a center-of-excellence for food & agriculture. Here all the stakeholders like government bodies, trade organisations, trade associations, professionals, WTCs and even accelerators, incubators, startups will be major contributors.”
While speaking on the development, Nissa added, “This center-of-excellence is different from the rest of the centers-of-excellence in the country. There are five elements on which our center is focused on i.e. skill development, up-skilling, entrepreneurship, innovations and R&D.”
This center-of-excellence is an initiative for boosting the industry which would give access for innovations & new technology. It would facilitate mentorship & training programmes by industry-academia engagement. Adding to it, CoE would be an impetus to food-tech entrepreneurs and the main focus being technology exchange and best practices between global markets & the Indian market.
Several technological advancements have been seen in agriculture for over the years. These advancements have always led to improved efficiency. Thus, now again with a similar notion, the CoE is focused to adopt new technologies like Internet of Things (IoT), Artificial Intelligence (AI), Data Enabled Farming, Drones and UAV, Farm Management Platforms, Smart Irrigation, Solar and Drip irrigation, Sustainable Urban Planning.
