Bhubaneswar: The National Dairy Development Board (NDDB) on Friday announced that it would expand its programme to empower farmers through Mother Dairy’s Safal and provide them access to national markets, including Delhi.
It will double its outreach to 2000 farmers for procuring fruits and vegetables in seven districts to ensure fair value for their produce.
Plans are also afoot to set up a milk processing plant and a central distribution facility in Odisha.
The NDDB has approached Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik for land in the Odisha capital to set up a central distribution facility.
While Rs 150 crore will be invested on the five lakh litre per day milk plant, Rs 25 crore will be spent on the central distribution facility, said NDDB Chairman Dilip Rath.
“Now, the national capital will get to taste the sweet mangoes from Odisha in a big way with enhanced operations by Safal,” he added.
Over the last 4 years, Safal has been actively procuring leading varieties of mangoes from Mayurbhanj and Dhenkenal districts through farmer organisations. Safal plans to double the procurement of mangoes from the state of Odisha this season to 150 tonnes.
Watermelon, brinjal, cucumber, okra, karela, onion, cabbage and leafy vegetables are also procured from Mayurbhanj, Dhenkenal, Nayagarh, Cuttack, Sambalpur and Deogarh districts.
Rath also said that they are planning to open 10 more Safal stores in Bhubaneswar and six in Sambalpur. It already has 16 stores in the two cities.
He also expressed his gratitude to Union Petroleum and Natural Gas Minister, Dharmendra Pradhan, for his initiatives to uplift farmers. Around 50 farmers, who have worked with Safal at the farm-level, were also felicitated.
