CHANDIGARH, 10 April 2020: Considering the significance of Agro-business in Punjab, World Trade Center Association (WTCA) is mulling to establish a mechanism and the platform to facilitate technology transfer and knowledge exchange for setting up center of excellence for Food and Agriculture.

Speaking on this, Mrs. Khair Ull Nissa, WTCA board member and member of food and agriculture committee said, “WTC Chandigarh is setting up a center of excellence for food and agriculture where all the stakeholders i.e. government bodies, trade organizations, trade associations, professionals, WTCs and even accelerators, incubators, startups would be major contributors.”

World Trade Center fraternity has a network of many World Trade Centers who are focusing on agriculture and have the best practices for it. 

 WTCA agricultural committee in association with agro-industry bodies intend to be a catalyst to the food and agricultural industry in India. World Trade Center Chandigarh is an active member of the Agro committee which is a sub-community under WTCA focusing on the food and Agro business.  

She further added, “This center of excellence is different from the rest of the center of excellence in the country. There are five elements on which our center of excellence is focused on i.e. skilling, up-skilling, entrepreneurship, innovations and R&D.”

The center of excellence is an initiative to boost the industry which would provide access for innovations and new technology.

This would facilitate mentorship and training programmes through industry-academia engagement. In addition, CoE would be an impetus to food-tech entrepreneurs and the major focus being technology exchange and best practices between global markets and the Indian market.

Over the years, agriculture has seen technological advancements leading to improved efficiency. With a similar notion, the center of excellence is focused on adopting new technology i.e. IoT, AI, DATA Enabled Farming, Farm Management Platforms, Smart Irrigation, Drones & UAV, Sustainable Urban Planning, New Technology – Solar, Drip irrigation, etc.

Punjab is the largest producer of rice, wheat, cereals and citrus fruits and has evolved as a start-up hub for food and agriculture. Having the largest food park in India, Punjab is ranked No.1 by World Bank in Ease of Doing Business.

India is the 2nd largest producer of Agricultural Products worldwide from the output. The sector contributes to around 17% of India’s GDP. Agriculture is the largest employment generator in the country and accounts for around 50% of the country’s total workforce and is their primary source of livelihood.