A strong and dynamic food processing sector plays a vital role in reduction in the wastage of perishable agricultural produce, enhancing shelf life of food products,ensuring value addition to agricultural produce, diversification &commercialization of agriculture, generation of employment, enhancing income of farmers and creating surplus for the export of agro & processed foods. In the era of economic liberalization, all segments including; private,public and co-operative sectors have defined roles to play and the Ministry promotes their active participation.

The Ministry of Food Processing Industries has a clear goal of attaining these objectives by facilitating and acting as a catalyst to attract quality investments from within India and abroad into this sector with the aim of making food processing a national initiative.With this overall objective, the Ministry aims to:

1. Enhance farmer's income by better utilization and value addition of agricultural produce
2. Minimize wastage at all stages in the food processing chain by the development of infrastructure for storage, transportation and processing of agro-food produce;
3. Introduce of modern technology into the food processing industries from both domestic and external sources;
4. Encourage R&D in food processing for product and process development and improved packaging;
5. Provide policy support, and support for creation of Infrastructure, capacity expansion/ Upgradation and other supportive measures form the growth of this sectors;
6. Promote export of processed food products.