New Delhi, July 31 - The government is planning to formulate a separate policy for the country's food processing industry and to scale up research and development (R&D) activities in the sector, Minister for Food Processing Industries Subodh Kant Sahai said here Friday.

'The government is planning to call a meeting of state food processing ministers after the conclusion of the current parliament session to seek their views in formulating a separate food processing policy,' Sahai said.

He was speaking at a workshop on 'New Perspectives in Research and Development in the Food Processing Sector', jointly organised by the ministry and the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI).

'Our ministry will also chart out a roadmap for scaling up R&D activities in the sector.'

The proposed new policy would lay special emphasis on private-public partnership (PPP) for giving a commercial orientation to R&D activities in the sector, Sahai said.

'It will turn the spotlight on technical capacity building for research with the ultimate aim of increasing the processing of perishables from the 2007-08 level of 10 percent to 20 percent by 2015 and raise value addition (of agricultural produce) from 25 percent to 35 percent,' he added.

According to him, R&D in food processing was vital for several areas like development of new cost-effective technologies for preservation and packaging of food products, development of innovative products using new technologies and use of energy-efficient processing.

Sahai added that another major target of his ministry was to create 500,000 women entrepreneurs in the food processing sector.