Known as the fruit and vegetable basket of the world, India ranks second in fruits and vegetables production in the world, after China. The food processing sector is one of the largest sectors in India in terms of production, growth, consumption, and export. There, however, exists a keen lack in processing and storage infrastructure and capabilities, which are essential to reducing the waste and enhancing the value addition and shelf life of the farm products. The government has ambitious plans to increase the level of processing from 6% to 20%, value addition from 20% to 35% and share in global food trade from 1.5% to 3% by 2015 (MOFPI, 2011). This will see a spike in the requirement for qualified and trained food processing professional across the food industry sectors. The purpose of this chapter is to discuss the importance of education for manpower development in the food industry and how it can be used to convert unemployable graduates into employable graduates for the food industry. The authors believe that private-public alliance between the private industry and public institutions (PPP) is the need of the hour and has the potential to create tremendous impact at the national level as the graduates coming out of the universities become more versatile with practical outlook.
Investigating the barriers to growth in the Indian food processing sector
