The “Agricultural Promotion and Investment Corporation of Orissa Limited (APICOL)” was set up by the Government of Orissa in the year 1996. The objective behind the formation of “APICOL” is to increase investments in agriculture and shifting the traditional orthodox type of agriculture into commercial and competence type of agriculture.
APICOL accorded the status of industry to agriculture. APICOL undertakes various promotional roles such as providing counselling and escort services, entrepreneurship building, extending consultancy services, organising residential camps for budding agricultural entrepreneurs, disseminating information amongst entrepreneurs and above all act as a single window channelizing agency for various incentives under Agriculture policy. It also provides capital Investment Subsidy for commercial agri-enterprises @ 20% of the -capital cost subject to a limit of Rs. 20 lakhs.
APICOL, the nodal agency of Ministry of Food Processing Industries, Government of India with the help of APEDA under the Ministry of Commerce, facilitates export of agricultural produces and processed foods from the country.
The strong efforts of APICOl towards the development of agri-entrepreneurship can be understand with its 219 commercial agri enterprises with an investment of 780 crores of rupees, through private initiatives. These enterprises includes projects relating to infrastructure such as cold storage and projects relating to animal husbandry and others. APICOL mostly focusses its attention to the growth of agro based and food processing industries. It teaches the nuances of entrepreneurship to the potential candidates and creates opportunity in various sectors such as cold storage, cold chain, value added diary products, meat production and processing, export of horticultural produces, export oriented spices industries, fisheries and fish processing, vegetable and fruit processing etc.