Ashwath Narayan addesses ‘TechBharat 3.0’ pre-event by Laghu Udyog Bharati-IMS Foundation
Minister for Higher Education Ashwath Narayan has urged farm and food technology companies, start-ups and students to come up with solutions for challenges being faced in the fields of agriculture and food technology so as to benefit the farming community in particular and the public in general.He was speaking at the first pre-event of “TechBharat 3.0” organised jointly by Laghu Udyog Bharati-Karnataka and IMS Foundation with the theme, “Transforming India’s FoodTech, AgriTech and Agronomic Landscape” in Belagavi on Wednesday.“We need good solutions to scale up the agriculture sector so that the farming community benefits out of technology-related solutions in logistics, soil testing, waste management, storing, processes, pesticide management and disease mitigation”, he said while emphasising the need for supporting the farming community with technological aids to upscale them economically and yield-wise. The Minister said that for enhanced growth of the ecosystem, it is quite essential that focus is on infrastructure development, market access, ecosystem engagement and talent development. “We are creating industries which will allow our youth who pass out at the district level, get jobs and work in their own native places,” he said.Mr. Ashwath Narayan said that the government has already identified several tier 2 and tier 3 cities and industries willing to set up shop in the places will be provided incentives. Necessary handholding by way of providing the requisite infrastructure support will also be done, he said.The Minister said that the government has also crafted policies to support strategic policy interventions in this regard. With the State being a land of emerging opportunities, the youth should get educated and come up with solutions to make villages propser and stop urban migration, he said.Vice-Chancellor of Visvesvaraya Technological University Karisiddappa, Chairman of KDEM B.V. Naidu and others spoke. Government officials, industrialists, domain experts, students of farm and food technologies took part.