Strong cold chain infra, must for agri biz

Chennai: In the backdrop of the recently held Banana Festival in Madurai, a veteran in the energy efficiency space offers insights into how beefing up the cold chain infrastructure for horticulture is essential for TN to leverage the true power of its agricultural economy.

Industry experts estimate that close to 40 per cent of farm produce gets wasted even before consumption due to the lack of cold storage facilities. This results in loss for both farmers and consumers who end up paying inflated prices for existing goods. This wastage costs 126 kg of lost food for each Indian. While the installed cold chain base in India is close to 33 mn metric tonnes, around 15 per cent of this base has been created in the last two years. And, of this total capacity, about 80 to 85 per cent is used for onions and potatoes.

Ravichandran Purushothaman, President, Danfoss Industries (P) Ltd, a key component supplier to the cold chain industry tells us, “Based on the 2014-15 production data, currently we need about 60 mn metric tonnes of cold storage capacity pan-India. This figure is specific to horticulture (and involves cultivation of apples, oranges, mangoes, bananas, pomegranates) which is a real pain point in the cold storage ecosystem. One of the biggest changes the agriculture sector needs is to transition to a process and customer-oriented method of cultivation. Seasonal cultivation in absence of proper cold storage mechanisms lead to shortages of products, like in the case of bananas during Aayudha Pooja season.” With an effective cold storage system, it is possible to increase farmer incomes by 200 per cent and even improve the export value of the produce. 

Explaining how banana cultivation has turned around over the past few years, thanks to the arrival of improved cold chain solutions, Ravichandran says, “The CII started doing interventions in the banana cultivation sector about five years ago. At that time, banana cultivators were incurring losses in the range of Rs 4,000 cr annually. Today, we have been able to bring down such losses by as much as 20 per cent. Moreover, the TN govt has identified 10 locations to implement an integrated cold chain project to aid banana cultivation, funded by NABARD to the extent of Rs 398 cr, which will be completed in 2 years. These facilities will cover 50 to 60 per cent of the horticultural cold chain requirements of the state for the next 3 to 4 years.” Ravichandran also draws attention to a few areas of concern within the ambit of agriculture that needed immediate redressal. He says, “There are close to 4 crore farmers in India who are involved in active cultivation. However, only four lakh farmers are currently using the National Agriculture Market (or e-NAM, an e-trading portal for agro-commodities). The reason is that many states are yet to set up infrastructure, and last mile connectivity to remote locations.”