What India can do to reduce food wastage

While existing surveys chiefly estimation quantitative losses, researchers astatine ICRIER-ADMI person tried to estimation prime losses, too the quantity losses. A broad survey of 1,200 farmers was conducted crossed Punjab, Bihar, and Madhya Pradesh for cardinal crops specified arsenic paddy, wheat, soybean, and maize successful 2022. The survey revealed that astatine 15.34 per cent soybean has the highest post-harvest loss, followed by wheat astatine 7.87 per cent, paddy astatine 6.37 per cent, and maize astatine 5.95 per cent including quantity and prime losses. Such important losses constituent to the urgent request for enhancing technological interventions crossed the value-chain to forestall nutrient nonaccomplishment betwixt harvest and retail. The survey shows that nutrient nonaccomplishment mostly occurs during harvesting, threshing, drying and retention stages, predominantly owed to debased levels of mechanisation and inadequate logistics infrastructure.

Farmers who usage harvester harvesters, for instance, spot a marked simplification successful paddy losses compared to those relying connected accepted manual methods. The survey reveals that wide nonaccomplishment successful paddy drops to conscionable 2.84 per cent if mechanisation successful harvesting and drying is adopted astatine the farm. According to the All-India Debt and Investment Survey (AIDIS) successful 2019, lone 4.4 per cent of cultivator households successful India owned tractors, and a specified 5.3 per cent owned either powerfulness tillers, harvester harvesters, oregon threshers. Small and marginal farmers, who represent implicit 86 per cent of Indian cultivation households, often cannot spend to bargain costly machines. For paddy, 97 per cent households usage harvester harvesters successful Punjab, whereas successful Bihar lone 10 per cent paddy paddy-producing households usage harvester harvesters. To beforehand workplace mechanisation, Farmer Producer Organisations (FPOs) and Custom Hiring Centres (CHCs) tin play a important relation done radical leasing arrangements and the “uberisation” of workplace machinery.

The availability of due drying and retention infrastructure besides plays an important relation successful reducing nutrient losses. Traditional prima drying methods are fraught with risks, including the summation of overseas matters, uneven drying, and vulnerability to moisture, which tin pb to mycotoxin contamination. Solar dryers and dehydrators connection a solution to trim losses and widen the shelf-life for perishables. These greenish technologies are cost-effective for small-scale farmers, they are climate-friendly and request to beryllium encouraged by due argumentation formulation.

Furthermore, retention infrastructure remains inadequate successful India. As per (IGSMRI, 2021), post-harvest losses relationship for astir 10 per cent of full nutrient atom accumulation owed to mediocre and inadequate retention infrastructure. Recently, the Government of India has launched a large atom retention plan. This inaugural is portion of a broader strategy aimed astatine modernising the cultivation strategy of India. The program entails the enlargement of retention capableness by 70 MMT implicit the adjacent 5 years. If implemented properly, it holds the imaginable to trim post-harvest losses astatine the retention level.

Mechanisation, enhanced storage, and businesslike proscription systems are cardinal areas wherever exertion tin marque a difference. Yet, beyond technological solutions, argumentation enactment is captious to guarantee that tiny and marginal farmers tin entree these technological changes. The Jute Packaging Material Act (JPMA, 1987) talks of utilizing jute bags for packaging rice, and wheat grains. Even though jute is biodegradable, it is simply a h2o guzzler and a labour-intensive crop, and its usage leads to predominant rodent attacks and pilferage successful tropical climates. There is simply a need, therefore, to re-visit the JPMA for an enlargement successful the usage of airtight bags which tin little retention and transit losses.

In a state wherever clime alteration and malnutrition inactive airs a large challenge, it would beryllium lone omniscient to absorption connected reducing FLW. Reducing post-harvest losses is not conscionable a substance of improving economical efficiency, but besides providing nutrient information to radical portion gathering resilience successful our nutrient systems. Thus, prevention radical and prevention the planet.

Gulati is Distinguished Professor and Das is simply a Research Fellow astatine ICRIER. Views are personal