New Delhi, Oct. 23 -- Union Minister for Food Processing Industries Chirag Paswan on Friday called for greater value addition, research and technological innovation in India's rice sector, saying the country must move beyond high production volumes to improve product quality and strengthen its position in global markets.

Addressing the Bharat International Rice Conference (BIRC) 2026 in New Delhi, Paswan said India had established a strong production base but needed to focus more on areas such as traceability, sustainability and processing to realise the sector's full potential.

"Since we have that volume with us, value is what we need to talk about. Since we have that production with us, product is what we need to emphasize on," he sai...