The Ministry of Food Processing Industries has not conducted any specific study to assess the impact of high temperature on post-harvest losses of agricultural produce in India. High temperature conditions lead to quality deterioration of fruits and vegetables. The Ministry had commissioned a study through NABARD Consultancy Services Pvt. Ltd. (NABCONS), namely, “Study to determine Post harvest losses of Agri Produce in India” in 2022 covering the production year 2020-21. The details of estimated loss of various commodities reported in the study are as under:
Post Harvest Losses
| Crops/ Commodities | Loss (%) |
| Cereals | 3.89 – 5.92 |
| Pulses | 5.65 – 6.74 |
| Oil Seeds | 2.87 -7.51 |
| Fruits | 6.02-15.05 |
| Vegetables | 4.82-11.61 |
| Plantation Crops & Spices | 1.29 -7.33 |
| Milk | 0.87 |
| Fisheries (Inland) | 4.86 |
| Fisheries (Marine) | 8.76 |
| Meat | 2.34 |
| Poultry | 5.63 |
| Egg | 6.03 |
Source: Study to determine Post Harvest Losses Agri produce in India.
Ministry of Food Processing industries (MoFPI) is implementing a Central Sector umbrella scheme Pradhan Mantri Kisan Sampada Yojana (PMKSY) since 2016-17 for overall growth and development of the food processing sector with the aim to augment preservation and processing capacity in the country so as to reduce post-harvest losses, create off farm employment, enhancing value addition and exports. PMKSY has following component schemes, at present – (i) Integrated Cold Chain and Value Addition Infrastructure, (ii) Infrastructure for Agro-Processing Clusters, (iii) Creation/ Expansion of Food Processing & Preservation Capacities, (iv) Food Safety and Quality Assurance Infrastructure (v) Human Resources and Institutions–Research & Development and (vi) Operation Greens. Earlier Mega Food Park and Scheme for Backward and Forward Linkages were was also the part of the PMKSY, which have now been discontinued.
The post-harvest infrastructure schemes under PMKSY covers creation of infrastructure facility along the entire supply chain viz. pre-cooling, weighing, sorting, grading, waxing facilities at farm level, multi product/multi temperature cold storage, controlled atmosphere (CA) storage, packing facility, IQF, blast freezing in the distribution hub and reefer vans, mobile cooling units for facilitating distribution of non-horticulture, horticulture, fish/marine, dairy, meat and poultry.
As a result of 679 completed projects under PMKSY, approximately 204.49 LMT of preservation and processing capacity were created till 30.11.2022.
This information was given by the Minister of State for Food Processing Industries, Shri Prahlad Singh Patel in a written reply in Rajya Sabha today.
Comments are closed.