"OPERATION FLOOD" MODE FOR FRUITS AND VEGETABLES? WHY NOT?

The high food inflation which is being experienced in India during the last 2-3 years can be attributed to soaring prices of fruits and vegetables in the country and naturally this situation has a bearing on the health of the population. While per capita consumption figures based on total production and the current population may not be so alarming but it hides more than what is revealed! It is a tragedy that the country's government puts out figures of production not based on ground realities and most of the figures coming out of Krishi Bhavan are more an estimate than the real production figures. Probably no one really knows how much is produced, consumed and wasted for want of protective measures during harvesting, storage and delivery to the consumer. Under such a situation, is the country destined to be a case of "blind leading the blind" with no one able to provide real time solution to the problem?

If a search is made regarding country's production of fruits and vegetables annually, either there are widely varying figures or a set of figures are repeated by many authors, citing each other! If one goes by most quoted figures, India accounts for 12% of world production of fruits estimated at 600 million tons (MT) and 20% of global output of vegetables placed at 1000 MT. That means about 60 MT of fruits and 120 MT of vegetables. Every article on fruit and vegetables do not fail to boast that India is the second largest producer of fruits and vegetables behind China which reported a production of more than 600 MT last year, though these figures have not been independently verified. Assuming that Indian production estimates are accurate, does any one know how much of this reaches the consumer? That is another story!   

From time to time claims have been made from different platforms that the country was incurring a post harvest loss of 25-40% though there is no authentication regarding these estimates. Even the Prime Minister of the country declared last year that food losses in the country is 30%! According to most recent estimates (veracity suspect) India is "wasting" food to the extent of Rs 44000 crore out of which fruits and vegetables account for Rs 13300 crore because of various reasons, most of which is due to negligence, mismanagement, sub optimum infrastructure, low level of education of farmers, lack of investment, etc, etc! Assuming these figures may be some where near the truth, why is that successive governments did not take any pro-active action to correct the situation?

Of course Government did set up the National Horticulture Board in 1984, supposed to be for boosting the horticulture industry. Then there is the National Horticulture Mission presumably for achieving increased production of these perishable produce. What has been achieved so far is some thing of a mystery because wastage figures still hover around 25-40%! Government does not seem to be learning any thing from its past experience as reflected by the colossal failure of similar such Missions on oil seeds, pulses etc which saw wastage of enormous public funds without achieving any thing as shortage of edible oil and pulses is still continuing. Does this mean that India can never come out of this morass and save its population from shortage of essential protective foods in the daily diet? 

What is shocking is that country has a successful model to emulate in National Dairy Development Board (NDDB) led by the great Dr V Kurien which made this country top producer of fluid milk in a span of three decades. How did he achieve this feat? A simple answer is that he led a team of technical and managerial professionals who worked from a small town far away from Delhi's interfering bureaucrats! The cooperative milk federation called Amul is a standing testimony to the success of cooperative model for production, processing and marketing. There is no reason why such cooperative system cannot work in the case of fruits and vegetables also if honest attempt is made and government does not interfere with its funct. 

According to a recent study there are about 6300 cold stores in the country, most of which are established in just 4 states while the actual requirement to take care of country's production would be of the order of about 12000. Existing facilities can handle about 30 MT of perishables while what is needed is additional storage capacity of another 30 MT calling for an investment of the order of 60000 crore. Only a dedicated organization like Amul can mobilize such a huge investment and implement the cooperative production at the village level. It is imperative that cold stores are established near the production areas as well as near the consumption centers to maintain optimum quality of the produce. Further an efficient supply chain consisting of refrigerated or insulated trucks is a pre-requisite for the success of such an effort.

The much hated Agriculture Produce Market Centers set up in most states have outlived their utility and are becoming a captive facility for cheating the growers by thousands of agents who monopolize the auction activities. If the cooperative entity intended for supporting the growers becomes a reality, the producers have an alternative to sell their produce in a transparent way in stead of to traders or at the APMC yards, assuring them decent returns. If private dairies are working successfully in many states competing with state milk federations, why not private nt nt players compete with the proposed cooperative fruit and vegetable entity? It is time Government finds another missionary cum visionary like late Dr V Kurien to redeem the sad conditions under which almost all small producers of perishables work to day.       

V.H.POTTY

http://vhpotty.blogspot.com/

http://foodtechupdates.blogspot.com

FRUITS AND VEGETABLES IN INDIA-GROWERS' NIGHTMARE!

Agreed that fruits and vegetables come under the category of protective foods because they, if consumed in adequate quantities, can provide the precious micro nutrients like vitamins and minerals besides many health boosting phytochemicals and valuable dietary fiber. During the last hundred years the habit of consuming these foods is coming down dramatically with consumers increasingly craving for meat foods. It is forgotten that the tragic health slide being experienced by the population in rich and wealthy countries is to a large extent, attributable to this switch from fruits and vegetables to animal foods and carbohydrate/fat based products. The astronomical farm subsidies flowing into the farm sector due the folly of the governments in many advanced countries are distorting the dietary regimes in favor of cheap processed foods ignoring the crucial importance of fruits and vegetables in maintaining health. If this is so in the developed world, what is the fate of consumers in the developing countries?

Take the case of India. Theoretically it is one of the top fruit and vegetable producing nations in this globe though it is also the second most populous country after China. The mere size of the population can be daunting for any government to provide for the well being, health and safety of its subjects. It is well known that India is plagued by malnutrition and soaring inflation. But an in-depth reality check will reveal that it is not due to inadequate production that the country is suffering from lack of food. Though it is the world's second largest grower of fresh produce there is more or less unanimity that the country loses an estimated 40 percent ( or a guesstimate?) of its fruit and vegetables to rot because of gross deficiency in the infrastructure like cold stores, refrigerated trucking, negligence of railways to provide dedicated racks, poor roads, inclement weather and the despicable corruption that pervades the whole country. Of course it is a poor consolation that post-harvest food losses of the scale found in India are also a problem throughout the developing world and translate into lower incomes for farmers and higher prices for consumers.

Inflation is already undermining living standards across Asia with world food prices at record highs since December last year, according to the FAO of the U.N. In India, home to more than a third of the world's 150 million malnourished children under 5, food inflation hovers around 10 percent stubbornly. Is it not a criminal neglect on the part of the government to allow wastage of such magnitude when poverty is an omnipotent phenomenon? When will it dawn on the government that just reducing the waste could make a significant dent  in bringing down food inflation and making food more affordable to the vulnerable segment of the population? Visit any vegetable market in India and one cannot escape the heaps of rotten vegetables accumulating side by side with vendors selling salable commodities! Imagine the frustration faced by an average consumer when exorbitant prices are charged by the vendors who factor the cost of the wastage into the price charged to the consumer! How can the food inflation be controlled in this country under such a condition? The economists and the financial pundits seem to be barking at the wrong tree when the inflation is sought to be moderated through Reserve Bank by increasing the banking rates across the board, forgetting that the price distortion is purely a supply-demand distortion with too many people chasing too little food available in the market.  

it is not that sporadic efforts are not made to address the sad situation prevailing in the country by successive governments at Delhi. Recall the efforts made by the NDDB in early eighties, under direction from the government in power at that time, to organize fruit and vegetable industry under the cooperative mode, similar to milk. However while NDDB had achieved sterling success with milk, it could not boast of similar success in either the edible oil sector or horticulture produce sector. Why it has failed is a story that is not well known. Could it be because of the obsession of the government with cereal grains ignoring the fresh produce industry? In spite of the recent pompous announcement of a Horticulture Mission by the government of India to augment production of these commodities, nothing precious has happened at the ground level. One is familiar with the fate of similar Missions in the past on Pulses and edible oils and even to day the country is still dependent imports to bridge their demand-supply gap!

Is it not a shame that a consumer has to pay Rs 15-25 for an average sized Apple where as for the same amount one can get almost two kg of coarse cereal that can keep the body and soul together for a poor person as long as a week? If the poor villagers in the hinterlands live on leafy vegetables, mostly grown locally, unable to buy any normal fruit or vegetable during his life time, what quality of life he can hope to live? Practically every fruit or vegetable in the market costs upwards of Rs 20 per kg and if the NPC has defined poverty line at Rs 32 per day, what choice a poor person under the BPL category, has when it comes to buying his food? With fertile agricultural land being diverted to support the real estate business through out the country, where will be the land for increasing production of horticulture produce to meet the increasing demand for them. Horticulture scientists may be working hard to develop newer and better production technologies for many important horticultural crops but in the absence of government support for propagating these technologies nothing tangible can come out of such efforts.

If the government of the day is to be believed, it is also concerned about the situation and it has "begun" work on a strategy to cut post-harvest losses by building modern grain silos, cold storage warehouses and setting up farmers' markets in remote areas to link vegetable growers with retail outlets in the cities. If the track record of the past is any indication nothing substantial will happen, at least in the near future except frequent statements, repeated ad naseum by the concerned ministers and bureaucrats. Ask any farmer in the country and they will confess that they have no faith in the government and even the promised changes are years away if not decades. admittedly. It is recognized that growing vegetables and similar perishables in India is a business fraught with serious financial risks with the farmers finding it difficult to find ready buyers at for such perishables like tomatoes, capsicum, and other vegetables at reasonable price. They face the risk of these vegetables rotting at every stage, whether in the field, on the road, or in the markets. It is familiar sight in almost all major mandisin the country to see hundreds of vegetable and fruit trucks reach the wholesale market each morning and commission agents scouting for the best bargains in a frenzied atmosphere and most farmers are lost in this wheeling dealing atmosphere not able to strike a favorable bargain..

Paucity of refrigerated trucks means that delays at state border crossings, traffic jams, or the frequent landslides that clog hill roads can cause vegetables to wilt and rot. There are only a few trucks run by private firms, that are refrigerated. The rest are open trucks, with tarps or plastic sheets for cover in case it rains. People travelingin these trucks perched on the sacks of gunny bags containing the produce is a familiar sight to behold! Too often the contents are crushed with practically no life left when the destination is reached. The recent opening up of the retail sector to foreign investment is viewed with hope that supermarket giants such as Walmart, Tesco and Carrefour when start operating in India's multibilliondollar retail market, there could be success where the government has failed. The provision for backward integration and building infrastructure for preserving the fresh produce is cited as the reason for such a hope. One has to wait and see whether India will really attract FDI in this sector under such stringent preconditions. Even if they arrive, it is to be seen whether they can reform the fragmented farm sector ans improve the agricultural to any significant extent. 

V.H.POTTY
http://vhpotty.blogspot.com/
http://foodtechupdates.blogspot.com