Bhubaneswar: A World Bank team would work with the Odisha governmenta to transform agriculture producer groups to entrepreneurs. There would be a collaboration between World Bank and Odisha government for promotion of grass root incubation for food industry.
This has been decided at a meeting between the global head of World Bank for Rural Livelihoods and Agricultural Jobs, Parmesh Saha, and the Odisha development commissioner R.Balakrishnan.
“We would have further engagement with World Bank groups for creation of more incubation facilities in rural Odisha”, said Balakrishnan.
Saha, who was here to deliver the Odisha Knowledge Hub lecuter, organized by the state government for top bureaucrats and policy makers, said that the Odisha government should transform the state’s bumper crop productions base into entrepreneurship.
He said globally around 21 per cent of jobs are created by the food processing and agri-processing sectors. According to him more jobs were created by transforming bumper production to agricultural entrepreneurship in agri-processing and food production in South Asian countries, Europe, France, Thailand and Holland. Stating that Odisha has become a land of bumper production of crops due to a series of promotional interventions during the last few years, he said that the state has build all pre-conditions for growth and job creation in agriculture sector. Now the state administration should transform this bumber production base to entrepreneurship through setting up of food processing culsters and incubation centres, the World Bank official suggested.
Stating that growth of small and medium enterprises in agricultural sectors required prior growth of multiple micro-entrepreneurs, he said these micro entrepreneurs along with the small and medium enterprises could generate a large number of job opportunities.
