International symposium of meat science association held

LUDHIANA: International symposium and seventh conference of

Indian Meat Science Association

on "New horizons for augmenting meat production and processing to ensure nutritional security, food safety and environmental sustainability" was inaugurated on Thursday at Guru Angad Dev Veterinary and

Animal Sciences University

(GADVASU). The event has been organized by department of livestock products technology, Guru Angad Dev Veterinary and Animal Sciences University (GADVASU), in collaboration with Indian Meat Science Association.

Dr Manish Kumar Chatli, organizing secretary and head of the department, said that more than 200 scientists, academicians, researchers and postgraduate students across the world are attending the conference. Dr Harpreet Kochhar, chief veterinary officer for Canada and associate vice-president of

Canadian Food Inspection Agency

, was chief guest for the conference. Dr C K Thota, director, Allanasons Pvt Ltd and O P Arora, chairman AOV group, were the guest of honour. Dr Simrat Sagar Singh, Dean Post Graduate Studies addressed august gathering on the behalf of Dr A S Nanda, cice-chancellor, GADVASU.

Dr J S Sidhu from University of Kuwait revealed his views on "Capacity building in food sector" whereas Dr Thota put light on "New horizons for augmenting Indian exports ensuring nutritional security, food safety and environmental sustainability". Dr VV Kukkarni, president, Indian Meat Science Association discussed in detail about "Indian Meat industry current status, challenges and further prospectus".

Two MoU's were signed with

Raja Food and Kansal Agro Food

for value addition of egg products with special emphasis on egg paneer. A compendium and CD of lectures were released by dignitaries and officers of university included Dr S S Singh, Dr J P S Gill, Dr Parkash Singh Brar and Dr B M Naveen IMSA Lifetime Achievement awards 2016 were conferred on Dr. Sushil Kumar, Dr John Abraham, Dr Shanmugham, Dr T R K Murthy, Dr Nagendra Sharma, Dr Kondaiah and Dr B N Kowate. Innovative

Entrepreneurship

award was conferred to Mohit Raja.

Dr Chatli said that conference was aimed to carry out brainstorming discussions and presentations to design the future strategies related to scientific slaughter with animal welfare, hygienic processing, packaging, preservation, food safety and quality assurance programmes.

Dr Chatli said that technical sessions on meat production and fresh meat quality, meat processing and value addition, preservation and packaging of livestock products, safety and quality assurance and meat biotechnology will be very useful for scientists and other stake holders related with industry.