Supply chain management: A way forward to curtail post-harvest losses and enhance farmers ’income

Abstract

India over the years witnessed a marked increase in production of perishable high nutrition products like fruits and vegetables but development of cold-chain infrastructure was not strategically directed, for safe handling and to transport these perishable products to markets. A resultant demand supply mismatch emerged across these commodities, contributing to wide spread price fluctuations and inflation. Cold-chain development efforts were earlier focused on building storage capacity for single commodity bulk storages, at production end, eg. potato and dried chilies whereas the larger basket of perishable horticulture requires other infrastructure components to avail of cold-chain as a market linked intervention. It is apparent that post-harvest losses can be reduced through efficient supply chain system from the point of harvest to the point of consumption. even if the country is able to reduce 50% of the losses/wastage from the current levels, the farmer's income will be sustainably enhanced and many rural employment opportunities will be created. In tomato supply chain study, it is concluded that improved practices have been widely adopted on the farm (improved varieties, trellising, marigolds as trap plants), best practices during harvesting (use of maturity indices, careful handling and picking aids), field handling (use of shade) and during the postharvest period (use of plastic crates, shade for sorting/grading practices) can lead to post harvest loss reduction by 10 percentage points and can cater to Vitamin C requirement of 1.6 billion people per year.