Value Added Products from Cane Juice for Food and Nutritional Security in India Singh Jaswant* Ex Project Coordinator (Process Engg.), Ex Principal Scientist & Head (Agri. Engg. Divn), ICAR-IISR, 1/56, Rashmi Khand, Sharada Nagar, Lucknow-226002, Uttar Pradesh, India *Corresponding Author jaswant_singh_us@yahoo.com
Online published on 30 November, 2019. Abstract Sugarcane is one of the major cash crops in India with the production of about 351 million tonnes annually from about 5.1 million hectares of land. About 70% of its’ total production is utilized for production of white sugar and remaining 30% for manufacturing of jaggery, khandsari, and also for seed, feed, chewing, fresh juice for drinking, and vinegar, etc. Juice and jaggery are considered as energy foods because they are rich sources of vitamins and minerals and have potential to fight the health and livelihood insecurity, particularly in rural India. The main causes of health and livelihood insecurity are unemployment and economic capacity to afford nutritious food and also their nonavailability. The industries, based on sugarcane as raw material, are labour intensive and leave scope for employment of a large number of unemployed people. It is estimated that employment potential in cottage scale processing units is three to four-fold compared to large industries with almost similar investments. These sugarcane processing industries are a key driver of rural development and support the economic growth of the country. Hence, the nutritional and medicinal potential of various value added products of cane juice is of immense importance because of a large population, particularly living in the rural sector, suffers due to under-and malnutrition. The low-cost technologies for manufacturing value added products from cane juice are also presented in the current article. Top Keywords Sugarcane, juice, value added products, malnutrition. Top |