At a time when the natural resources of the earth are straining under the weight of an exponentially growing population — an issue thrust into the forefront with global population breaching the seven billion mark recently — it is unconscionable that a hugely-populated country like India lets 20 per cent of agricultural produce to go waste due to lack of proper storage.
Reducing this wastage requires more than just a few more infrastructure . It needs a change in the mindset of farmers and agricultural producers that adoption of modern technology to reduce post-harvest losses through well-equipped storage centre is the way to make farming viable and sustainable.
Importance
This issue has huge importance to Madurai, which is not only a major farming centre by itself, but also a hub where most of the agricultural produce in southern districts of Tamil Nadu is brought for storage before being despatched to all parts of the country.
Stress on storage
R. Mohana Sundaram, Senior Marketing Officer (SMO), Directorate of Marketing and Inspection, Madurai, points out that during harvest season, Madurai sees the arrival of agricultural produce form three to five districts simultaneously in a short span of around 20 days. This placed tremendous stress on the storage points and a sizeable quantity is lost.
Despite this situation existing for decades, nothing much has changed. In Western countries and even in the neighbouring China, adequate planning is done ahead of harvest season and godowns and storage facilities are beefed up.
As a result, most Western countries see loss of only 5 to 7 per cent.
He advocates replicating the hugely-successful strategy Tamil Nadu adopted to increase milk production.
Instead of having farmers come down all the way to marketing centres, small collection centres could be set up in the farming belt to collect perishable products like fruits, vegetables and flowers.
These collection centres could be clustered around one major processing centre, which could be equipped with cold storage and other requisite facilities.
The NABARD provides 25 per cent subsidy and 75 per cent loan for such projects.
“Such measures would go a long way in avoiding distress sale and at the macro level, a buffer stock could be created to bring about stability in prices,” adds Mr. Mohana Sundaram.
Huge wastage
S. Rethinavelu, President, Agro Food Chamber of Commerce and Industry, expressed grave concern that food grains worth around Rs. 78,000 crore were perishing annually for want of safe storage.
One move towards reducing this loss was for farmers to make more use of the Tamil Nadu Storage Marketing Yard. Constructed in an area of 30 acres with a total storage capacity of 60,000 tonnes and 2,500 tonnes cold storage, it also had state of the art facilities.
He also said that the Tamil Nadu Storage Marketing Yard was planning a display for agri products in addition to holding various orientation programs for the benefit of the farming community
R. Shankar Narayan, NABARD Assistant General Manager, said that NABARD promoted Farmers Clubs were being educated on the need for adopting technically superior post-harvest methodologies.
“The future of farming lies in farmers coming together as producer companies and maximising their income levels and bargaining capacity. Creating and expanding state of the art storage facilities is the need of the hour.”
Towards this objective, a sensitisation programme on Marketing Infrastructure Grading and Standardisation was conducted by National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD) at Tamil Nadu Foodgrains Marketing Yard here recently.
Marketing infrastructure
P. Ramalingam, NABARD Assistant General Manager, gave a detailed presentation during the meeting on various subsidy facilities given through NABARD.
He urged 60 farmers who took part to take advantage of schemes of Government of India to promote marketing infrastructure.
The farmers were also given an opportunity to go around the Tamil Nadu Foodgrains Marketing Yard and have a view of various facilities such as Tunnel Dryer, Cleaning & Grading, Packaging, Colour Sorting, Research and Development activities, cold storage and common godown.
Muthupeiyandi, a member of the Vaigai Farmers Club, who attended the meeting, said, “We have already taken to joint purchase of inputs such as fertilisers. Now, we are also interested in establishing our own godown facilities and storage infrastructure.”
