Analyzing drawbacks of Indian agricultural supply chain and increasing its effectiveness

Abstract

India is the 2nd largest producer of vegetables. According to a study more than Rs.13,500 crores worth of vegetables get wasted every year due to various reasons. Since studying wastage of each and every vegetable is out of scope of study, the current research focuses on one of the most spoiled vegetables in India, Tomato. Initial research focused on identifying the causes of vegetable wastage and in what proportions. Identified cause can be classified into a) Poor supply chain b) storage system. c) handling After, the ways to reduce it are analysed. Information (Price) asymmetry and lack of cold (or normal) storage impact wastage in a major way. We selected 3 Markets (Kalasipalayam, Kolar and Chintamani market) in and around Bangalore to conduct survey from farmers, aggregators/middle men, in addition to modern retail like Bigbazaar, Reliance Fresh, Hypercity. Most of the farmers didn’t have or use cold storage system and didn’t want to use it because of lack of humidity control system in cold storage. Tomatoes get spoiled by fungus after few hours of taking out them from cold storage which doesn’t have proper humidity control system. Most of the farmers have decent smartphones and were willing to use a Mobile application designed for agriculture selling if it can benefit them. A mobile application can reduce a) Information asymmetry. b) reduce lead time. c) Transportation distance (without the need to go to market for selling). A farmer owned (Or group of farmers) Micro cold storage with proper humidity control and normal cold storage at Whole sale market (Mandi) to store overnight can stabilize prices and help farmers in a better way.