The Minister of State for Agriculture, Professor K.V. Thomas has emphasised the need of addressing the structural imbalance and mismatch between income generation in farm sector and non-farm sector on urgent basis. Speaking at the 2nd International Summit on Processed Food and Agri-business in New Delhi, he said that agriculture is the principal source of livelihood for more than 58 percent of the population but its contribution to the national GDP is only about 18 percent. He said the process of investment in agriculture both in public and private sectors needs to be accelerated in the coming years. The Minister said that production of food grains has to be increased more to provide food security to the country alongwith improvement in storage capacity. He called upon the private sector to come forward for investment in augmenting storage capacity.