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RICE FORTIFICATION WITH IRON TO ADDRESS INCIDENCES OF ANAEMIA
The Department of Biotechnology( DBT) through R & D support to Indian Institute of Technology( IIT), Kharagpur has developed the requisite technology on the fortification with Iron for addressing the incidence of anaemia. This involves production of Iron fortified rice premix through extrusion process using broken rice kernels. This iron fortified rice kernel premix matches with the normal rice kernel in shape and size, and when mixed with normal rice in the ratio of 1:100 provides 50 percent of recommended daily allowance( RDA) of Iron. This technology can also be used to fortify rice with other micro nutrients, as well. The incremental cost of fortification has been estimated by IIT-Kharagpur to be upto 80 paise per kg of rice.
As per the Minister of State for Science and Technology, Mr Y S Chowdhary, the number of steps taken by Government to take forward the rice fortification model to all parts of the country to deal with nutritional deficiency among the women and children.
A Pilot Scale Unit with a capacity of 100 kg / hr / shift has been commissioned at IIT-Kharagpur. The technology is ready for demonstration and transfer to prospective entrepreneurs. The same can be commercialized. However, for introduction in the Govt programmes such as Mid-day Meal Scheme and ICDS to address micro nutrient deficiencies in children, DBT would be willing to set up pilot scale production unit in States who would be interested. Accordingly,
Accordingly, an MoU could be executed between DBT and the respective State Government Departments. This technology was also deliberated in the“ National Summit on Fortification of Food” which was an Inter Ministerial meeting convened by FSSAI on 16th and 17th October, 2016, which was attended by State and Central Government officials, Industry representatives and academia. Further, DBT’ s proposal on the above issue has also been shortlisted in the Inter State Council Secretariat for the Eastern Zonal States – Bihar, Jharkhand, Odisha, West Bengal under their social outreach programme.
INDIA REMEMBERS ITS GREATEST EVER MILKMAN
On the occasion of the National Milk Day on November 26, 2016, the celebrations were held in New Delhi to commemorate the birth anniversary of Dr Verghese Kurien, the father of white revolution.
Speaking on the ocassion, the Union
Agriculture and Farmers Welfare Minister, Mr Radha Mohan Singh mentioned that Dr Kurien’ s contribution in organizing the dairy farmers in the form of cooperatives is well known. He stated that India is world leader in milk production since last 15 year and credit of making India as world leader in milk production goes to small producers.
Mr Singh further said that lot of work is to be done in the sector in order to make available sufficient nutrition and milk to every child in the country. Agriculture Minister informed that India with 190.90 million cattle( as per 19th Livestock Census 2012) has 13 percent of the world cattle population. Out of this, 151 million are indigenous, which is 80 percent of the total cattle population. Country with 108.7 million buffaloes has 57 percent of the world buffalo population. Country is number one in bovine population having 18 percent of the world population and contributing 20 percent of the total milk produced in the world.
RS 118 CRORE SPENT ON FARM MECHANIZATION IN LAST TWO YEARS
Recently while releasing coffee table book,“ Farm Mechanization for Make in India’, the Union Agriculture and Farmers Welfare Minister, Mr Radha Mohan Singh stated that it is essential to use maximum and best technology available resources in fast changing world. He pointed towards the growing world economic competition so that domestic requirement of food grains can be met and export may be promoted.
Agriculture Minister said that farm mechanization has become an important part of crop production, processing and transport but it is facing double challenges in the whole world. The first challenge is to increase the supply of food for growing population and the second is the protection of environment. He said that the challenge of farm mechanization still exists in India. Most of our land holding is a small, therefore, commercial use is not proving beneficial but government ensuring the availability of farm machine- rota vator, blow sprayer, cotton cultivator, cutter and shredder through the establishment of custom hiring centre for those farmers who cannot buy costly farm machines. Four regional farm machinery training and testing institutes have been established in the country which cater to the needs of standard and quality farm machinery and equipments.
Mr Singh informed that farm mechanization sub-mission has been started from 2014-15 for the purpose of promoting farm mechanization in the country by Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare. The aim of the sub-mission is to promote farm mechanization for small and marginal farmers and to promote farm mechanization where there is less availability of farm machines. The Minister further said that the Modi government released Rs 340 crore for this sector in last two years i. e. 2014- 16 whereas the previous government released only Rs 62 crore between 2012-14. Mr Singh said that Central Government has released Rs 118 crore for mechanization purpose.
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BioVoiceNews | December 2016- January 2017