Covid19 Safety for Agri-markets in India

Life can only be sustained with food, and food supply is dependent on agricultural trade, which is routed through wholesale markets (mandis).

Typically, the operations in mandis involves crowds and close quarters working practices. This, in the age of COVID-19 raises some concerns. Yet, the mandis must function to maintain supply of agri-produce.

To keep the agri-markets safe, a few basic suggestions are listed. If readers have other ideas, please feel free to add in comments.

Cold Chain scenario in India?

What is the Cold Chain and what is its importance for the Agriculture sector? What is the overall scenario of Cold Chain in India? What are the challenges before us, where we stand in comparison to other developed countries? What kind of technological & infrastructural and knowledge up gradation logistic companies need to do to meet the demand of goods in the future? What are the challenges do you see in front of logistic companies to reach the rural areas and how can it be tackled? Wal-Mart has parted itself from Bharti very recently, how will it affect the India’s retail and supply chain industry and its infrastructure? What is NCCD doing and its future goal?

Above are a series of questions thrown my end, with some quick responses in revert.

Cold-chain is a series of interlinked chain of activities that link perishable goods from source point to destination. Inherently cold-chain must involve a market linkage and a product life cycle matrix.

Focus development in Rural India

Rural India as the source, not just as a destination market

India’s Cold-chain sector was traditionally driven by the industrial infrastructure and equipment providers and various documents output by industry bodies like CII and FICCI and large consulting firms drove across the need for greater storage infrastructure required in this sector. The country followed through, and over years developed an enviable capacity in cold storage, amongst the largest in the world. Yet, our cold-chain is still considered nascent and troubled. As a follow-up, the government of India constituted the NCCD; sanctioned by the cabinet in February 2012, envisaged as a think tank to policy makers, involving participation from cold storage providers, technology & equipment providers, consultants and grower associations.

Ever since its incubation, the National Centre for Cold-chain Development (NCCD) has moved the understanding that mere storage of produce is not the final solution to food distribution. Cold-chain means market linkage and it involves a series of inter-weaved activities and has an expanded horizon beyond temperature controlled storage. NCCD thereby opened its participation base to include educational institutions, farmers and producers, traders and sellers, self-help groups, consumer groups, student groups, agri-entrepreneurs and enterprises involved in air, sea, rail & road logistics, finance, retail, research, packaging, marketing, etc.

Today, besides the equipment providers & store owners, the entire cold-chain user base, including who are impacted by it and those who add value in form of knowledge or R&D, now have opportunity to contribute directly to future developments. Through such collective participation from a wider stakeholder base, more conjoined inputs for holistic development is resulted and made this unique brain trust (NCCD) even more inclusive across all cold-chain segments.

Efforts were then undertaken to identify what were the major missing links in India's cold-chain, specifically in relation to fresh agricultural produce. Various options were put forth…