India is becoming destination country for healthy food items: Narendra Singh Tomar

Jammu: Agriculture and Farmers Welfare Minister Narendra Singh Tomar says government has emphasized on re-introducing traditional food items including millet, other nutritious cereals, fruits and vegetables, fish, dairy and organic products in the diet of the people. He said, their production has been phenomenal in India in recent years and India is becoming a destination country for healthy food items. He was speaking at the second day’s session of the G-20 Agriculture Ministers’ meeting. The theme of this session was “Working together to achieve the Zero Hunger goal: successful projects implemented by the Ministries of Agriculture”.

In his virtual address, Mr Tomar said that keeping in mind the importance of Nutri-cereals, the United Nations has accepted the proposal of the Government and declared the year 2023 as the International Year of Millets. He appealed to the nations to support the celebration of Millet Year to promote nutrition and sustainable agriculture. Mr Tomar stated that the agriculture sector in India has achieved great success after independence. Indian agriculture sector remained unaffected even during the COVID pandemic. The Minister expressed happiness that the various initiatives of the Government to keep the Agri-market dynamic along with the Agri-input supply chain during COVID have helped the agriculture sector in better performance. During the year 2020-2021, along with increase in the production of food grains, there has been a significant increase in exports.