Cold-chain management for reducing post-harvest losses and increasing farmers income

Abstract

Cold Chain helps in transporting seasonal products and also making it available throughout the year. Two main parts of cold chain are transportation and storage systems. The key Indian industries where cold chain logistics play very important role are fruits and vegetables, milk and milk products (ice cream), Poultry and processed meat, marine products, pharmaceutical (mainly vaccines) and chemicals. An efficient cold chain industry ensures availability of food products as well as prevents spoilage of medicines. Country like India, where infrastructure is one of the major challenges, cold chain plays a critical role. Analysis for this study shows that cold supply chain network does not differ significantly from products to products at least in Indian scenario. Some of the challenges to the growth of sector in India are high energy cost, power deficit, rising real estate cost, lack of logistical support and uneven distribution of capacity. All these challenges bring down the operating margin of a company and makes it not so attractive business sector. But during last couple of years there is a positive environment being created for this sector in India. The Indian agricultural sector is witnessing a major shift from traditional farming to horticulture, meat and poultry and dairy products, all of which are perishables. The demand for fresh and processed fruits and vegetables is increasing as urban populations rise and consumption habits change. Due to this increase in demand, diversification and value addition are the key words in the Indian agriculture today. These changes along with the emergence of an organized retail food sector spurred by changes to Foreign Direct Investment laws, are creating opportunities in the domestic food industry, which includes the cold chain sector. As a result of the Government of India’s new focus on food preservation, the cold storage sector is undergoing a major transformation. The Government has introduced various incentives and policy changes in order to curtail production wastage and control inflation; increase public private participation and improve the country’s rural infrastructure (Fig.1). Cold chain infrastructure includes cold storage infrastructure, transport infrastructure and point of production infrastructure. There are approximately 6300 cold storages in India designed originally for single commodity storage. Refrigerated transport or cold chain distribution is still in its nascent stage in India and is way behind if compared to world standards for cargo movement. Presently reefer transport business in India is estimated at ‘10-12 billion which includes reefer transportation demand for both exports and domestic.