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Post-harvest Situation and Losses in India

Summary

India is second largest producer of food next to China with estimated food processing industry size at US$ 70 billion. In 2012, the production was 257 million tonnes of food grain (rice, wheat, coarse grains and pulses), 75 million tonnes of fruits and 149 million tonnes of vegetables. Out of these amounts, only 2.2 % of these are processed. In contrast, countries like USA (65%) and China (23%) are far ahead of India in reducing the wastage and enhancing the value addition and shelf life of the farm products. The losses in postharvest sector are estimated to be from 10 to 25 per cent in durables, semi-perishables and products like milk, meat, fish and eggs. The estimated losses in fruits and vegetables are higher and reached from 30 to 40 per cent. These percentages are not acceptable and adversely affect the Indian economy. To prevent such amount of losses, different organizations in India have been trying to find solution for serious issue related to post-harvest. Some efforts came with progress and achievements, other work didn’t reflect to visible success as expected. So, in this study, our aim is to address and discuss the important ramified issues in post-harvest in India with focusing on the rules or constructions of most postharvest contributories. As noticed from the comprehensive literature review, India has well established postharvest institutions supported by government, public and private sector. The national-scale surveys and studies have been carried out mainly by the government and in few cases international organization, while, case studies and district/level research mostly carried out by local research institutions and universities. There are many remarkable technologies distributed successfully and reached the end-users/farmers in some places. However the continuous impact and follow up stages of them haven’t been covered by literature review. The rules of national/international non-governmental organizations varied and concentrated on specific areas. The economic losses reported either in districts or national level and the figures of losses didn’t match for some cases. The role of women and their suited technology in post-harvest clearly highlighted, but the procedures of engaging them in postharvest losses reduction strategies still not clear. Keywords: Post-harvest, food losses, private sector, policies, gender, post-harvest

technology, non-governmental organization

1. Introduction

Post-harvest food loss is defined as measurable qualitative and quantitative food loss along the supply chain, starting at the time of harvest till its consumption or other end uses (Hodges et al., 2011). Every year, an estimated 1.3 billion ton - roughly one-third - of the food produced for human consumption worldwide is lost or wasted. In industrialized countries, significant waste occurs at the consumption stage, while in low-income countries, food losses take place primarily during the early and middle stages of the supply chain (FAO, 2011). Empirical evidence on the extent of post-harvest food losses is scarce and estimates vary substantially, between countries and regions as well

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as between different types of products. Some estimates for average losses in East and Southern Africa, for instance, put Post-harvest losses for grains at 10-20 per cent (in term of weight loss), with some regions reaching as high as 25-35 per cent. In South and Southeast Asia, rice physical losses are 10–25% and quality losses can discount prices by up to 30 per cent (Gummert, 2013 ; Manners-Bell and Miroux, 2013; FAO, 2011).

Peculiarly, current values related to post-harvest losses have no much difference about the early cited values, the first world food conference in 1974 identified reduction of post-harvest losses as part of the solution in addressing world hunger. At this time, an overall estimate for post-harvest losses of 15 per cent, more previous extensive studies suggested that about 15 per cent of grain may be lost in the post-harvest system (Liang et al., 1993; Parfitt et al., 2010). As for individual case, rice in Asia, the estimated quantitative losses ranged from 10 to 37 per cent in 1994 and was from 13-15 per cent by 2004 (FAO, 1994; Smil, 2004; Grolleaud, 2002). That does not mean there was no progress or reduction in post-harvest, but it is shows that current global losses cannot be quantified whoever post-harvest loss data for developing countries was collected over many years ago, (Parfitt et al., 2010).

In India, the production is about 450 million tons of raw food materials of plant and animal origin which are refined, stored and transformed into various usable products using conventional and modern post-harvest and food processing technology, out of this amount there is 10 per cent post-harvest losses in durables (Cereals, pulses and oilseeds), 20 per cent losses in semi-perishables (Potato, onion, sweet potato, tapioca) and around 25 per cent in products like milk, meat, fish and eggs. Furthermore, In India, annual storage losses estimated to be 14 million ton of food grains worth $ 16,000 million every year. About from 30 per cent to 40 per cent of the fruits and vegetables grown in India (40 million tons amounting to US$ 13 billion) get wasted annually due to gaps in the cold chain such as poor infrastructure, insufficient cold storage capacity, unavailability of cold storages in close proximity to farms, poor transportation infrastructure, etc. This results in instability in prices and farmers cannot get remunerative prices beside rural impoverishment and farmers’ frustrations (Rajasri et al., 2010; Maheshwar and Chanakwa, 2006; Rolle, 2006; Ali, 2004).

On the basis of production and wholesale market price in India, The Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India (ASSOCHAM) found that fruits and vegetables post-harvest losses reached amount of $33,745 million in 2011-12 and may cross $33,745 million in 2013-14. Among the major producing states, West Bengal incurred highest loss of $ 2,163 million followed by Gujarat $ 1,805 million, Bihar 1,702 million and Uttar Pradesh $ 1,633 million (ASSOCHAM, 2013). Unavailability of cold storages in India is just one of major reasons for these losses, since operating costs for Indian cold storage units are a whopping over $60 per cubic metre per year compared to less than $30 in the west. Energy expenses make up about 28 per cent of the total expenses for Indian cold storages compared to 10% in the West. These factors make setting up of cold storages difficult, unviable and uneconomical (Maheshwar and Chanakwa, 2006).

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In last decades different organizations and institutions in India, including; governmental organization; National/international research institutes and universities; private sector; Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) etc. have been involved and played different rules in post-harvest losses and their effect. Compared to other Developing Countries, Indian Government has different organizations and departments involved in post-harvest losses issues, i.e. Department of Agriculture and Cooperation (DAC) which follows Ministry of Agriculture and has the Agricultural Marketing Advisor, DAC active in cooperative education & training, information technology and agricultural marketing with providing different post-harvest commodity profiles, DAC supervise the Directorate of Marketing & Inspection (DMI) which is running national level surveys and statistics within the country. Also; Department of Agricultural Research and Education (DARE), which leads Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) the autonomous organisation with separate thrust area in reduction of post-harvest losses, value addition to agricultural produce, processing and utilization of by-products. ICAR also has established the Central Institute of Post-Harvest Engineering and Technology (CIPHET) in 1989 and now CIPHET is running different projects including assessment of post-harvest losses, application of modern technologies, low cost cold chain transport and storage and many other post-harvest related works. In addition, The Department of Food and Public Distribution in Ministry of Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution (MCAFPD) has a primary Policy objective to ensure food security for the country through timely and efficient procurement and distribution of foodgrains, this involves procurement of various foodgrains, building up and maintenance of food stocks, their storage, movement and delivery to the distributing agencies and monitoring of production, stock and price levels of foodgrains.

2. General post-harvest situation

2.1 Governmental organizations /departments country level studies and surveys

Due to well established governmental institutions in India, many research practices have been conducted. Governmental national level field surveys with help of State agricultural marketing boards/government undertakings/ agricultural universities etc., was conducted to study marketable surplus and post-harvest losses of foodgrains at the producer’s level, with methodology and profile of sample villages during continuous basis for a period of three years, i.e. 1996-97, 1997-98 and 1998-99. It Covered 25 States, 100 districts and 15,000 cultivator households in the country, and covered also vital information on village population, geographical area, area under cultivation, sources of irrigation, ratio of area under each crop, distribution of cultivators in different categories, accessibility of the market, condition of the feeder roads and availability of storage capacity etc. as pre and post production factors (DMI, 2002a). Although the huge amount of data collected, there were very few figures about post-harvest losses and their values i.e. post-harvest losses during different operation for paddy at producers’ level were as shown in Table 1 (Joshi et al., 2004; DMI, 2002b)

Table 1 Post-harvest losses during different operation for paddy at producers’ level

Item Quantity lost, 1000 ton % to total production

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Losses in transport from field to threshing floor

971.39 0.79

Losses in threshing 1085.76 0.89

Losses in winnowing 584.62 0.48

Losses in transport from threshing floor to storage

193.40 0.16

Losses in storage at producers level 484.40 0.40

Total losses at producers level 3319.57 2.72

Data related to marketable surplus showed that either primary market or secondary market served almost 96.74 per cent of the Villages, about 73.9 per cent of the villages had storage capacity below 200 quintals (20 tonne). It was also observed that storage capacity was available on varying scales in the class 200 quintals to 5000 quintals (20-500 tonne) in case of small percentage of villages. Surprisingly storage capacity of more than 5000 quintals (500 ton) was reported from 4.3 per cent of total sample villages and only 25.5 per cent villages had institutional storage facility within a radius of 10 kms. The study highlighted also the marketed and marketable surplus which was stood at 51.97 per cent and 55.46 per cent respectively as general , there was no much difference between these data and the other recent marketed and marketable surplus ratio observed by Agro-Economic Research Centre, Visva-Bharati in West Bengal for rice where average marketed surplus ratio, taking all farms together, was standing at 55.30 per cent of net availability of paddy or 61.19 per cent of current production of paddy, the marketable surplus ratio was standing at 43.49 per cent of net availability of paddy 36.43 % of current production (Sarkar and Roy, 2013).

With more concentration in assessment of post-harvest losses, a comprehensive nation-wide quantitative assessment of harvest and post-harvest losses for 46 agricultural produces was carried out to estimate the extent of harvest and post-harvest losses (DARE/ICAR, 2011). Data were collected through integrated stratified multistage survey design from 106 randomly selected districts of the country representing all targeted agricultural produces. This assessment covered 14 out of 15 agro-climatic zones without Island region agro-climatic zone. The data were collected through enquiry as well as actual observations. Estimates obtained through both procedures were combined by assigning appropriate weighing factors before arriving at final estimate of losses for a commodity. The operations considered for assessment of losses were harvesting, collection, threshing, grading/sorting, winnowing/cleaning, drying, packaging, transportation, and storage depending upon the commodity. As results came from this study, the post-harvest losses differed as in Fig 1. The post-harvest losses comprise essentially on-farm losses and those in transportation and storage in different marketing channels. Where post-harvest losses have been done without systematic study with only preliminary estimates, this study forms a milestone and can be considered as a bench-mark survey.

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Fig. 1 Harvest and post-harvest losses in different commodities from nation scale quantitative assessment in India 2011.

For some individual cereals like wheat, the post-harvest losses of wheat are estimated to the tune of 8 per cent of production. There are different estimates on post-harvest losses in foodgrains. According to one estimate, the harvest and post-harvest losses are as shown in Table 2 (Sreeramulu et al., 2005)

Table 2 Different reasons may cause post-harvest losses of wheat

Losses reason % of Losses Losses reason % of Losses

Threshing 1.0 Birds 0.5

Transport 0.5 Insect 3.0

Processing - Moisture 0.5

Rodents 2.50 Total : 8.0

Percentages of harvest and post-harvest losses which came in Figure 1 and Table 2 were not far from the percentage of losses cited by CIPHET prospective plane-vision 2025 (CIPHET, 2007), where the losses of foodgrains due to improper handling and storage was mentioned to be as high as 10 per cent. More than 6 per cent of rice is lost due to poor storage design and practices, about 66 per cent of rice is milled in hullers, while the remaining in shellers and modern rice mills. And it is estimated that more than 25-40 per cent of the total production of fruits is lost due to spoilage at various post-harvest stages, and around 20-25 per cent of the total vegetables is lost due to poor post-harvest practices. Therefore; development of need based post-harvest technologies for safe storage; development of agro-processing technologies for different commodities for adoption at rural level to minimize post-harvest losses and

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development of technologies for value added products have been made as CIPHET target in its plan.

Along with the efforts done by the Indian government to address losses in post-harvest, The Department of Food and Public Distribution keep distributing the uniform specification of different commodities in order to insure that farmers can get due price for their products, mostly these specification to be insured by all states/union territories and food corporations of India (Department of Food and Public Distribution, 2012). As in in rural areas, Integrated Intensive Farming System (IIFS) including rural based post-harvest activities has been recommended where the technology for establishing such agro-processing complex are available and requires to be adopted and should be demonstrated through pilot plant, that is help in reducing post production losses, generating employment opportunities in rural sector and provides better quality products to the consumers at reduced rates. (Ali, 2004)

2.2 Research institutes and universities roles in districts/states level

Research institutes and universities in India undertake a lot of work and studies related to post-harvest losses assessment, evaluation, new technology etc. and mostly it cover specific commodities in district/state level or general research for one or more of post-harvest losses component.

For addressing the seed storage as important reasons for post-harvest losses, study on viability and quality of wheat grain under storage has been conducted on sample from Allahabad district. The grain losses found in quantity and quality; can be in the form of depletion in seed viability, hardness, colour, size and shape, grain weight under post-harvest storages. Also, it was observed that a holistic ecological view is needed when considering management approaches to long-term-storage of wheat grains for the maintenance of quality; other recommendation was that concrete steps should be taken to improve the storage conditions in granaries (Mathew, 2010).

Post-harvest losses in Karnataka at the farm level have been estimated to be 3.82 per cent for rice and 3.28 per cent on weight basis, for wheat. The losses have been highest during storage in both the crops (The storage losses at different stages have added up to about 35.80 % of the total post-harvest losses in rice and 33.52 per cent in wheat, during harvesting and threshing operations, there was about 17 per cent of total losses in both the crops, Transit losses at different levels have been important component of post-harvest losses, contributing to about 20 per cent of the total losses (Basavaraja et al., 2007).

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In northern part of India, Uttarakhand, study has examined the nature and extent of post-harvest losses in vegetable supply chain, multistage cluster sampling has been used for selection of 80 vegetable growers, 40 farmers from the hilly region and 40 farmers from the bhabhar region. The sample has also included 25 market functionaries. The total post-harvest losses at producer and retail levels ranged from 6 of 23 per cent of production for all vegetable as shown in Fig 2.

Fig 2 Post-harvest losses of different 12 kind of vegetable at producer and retail levels for 12 major vegetables in Uttarakhand

The study has suggested that one possible solution to tackle these problems could be the establishment of producer co-operatives to handle various activities relating to production and marketing of vegetables. This will not only help reduce the post-harvest losses but will also increase the bargaining power of growers in marketing. It will help them in adopting consumer-oriented approach to vegetable marketing (Sharma and Singh, 2011).

2.3 International organizations efforts

The international organizations have been active in studying and reporting the post-harvest situation and losses in India since long time ago. The International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) released technical book written for developing countries including India, It included appropriate equipment and design criteria for different Rice Post-harvest equipment which contributed in enhancing post-harvest industry (Wimberly, 1983).

The ADM (Archer Daniel Midlands) Institute for the Prevention Post-harvest Loss, University of Illinois, funded 4 case studies in India (Sonka et al., 2012; Sonka et al., 2008). The studies included, understanding rice post-harvest losses in Tamil Nadu, study

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the value chain of maize in Rajasthan, mapping the production system and the supply chain & study the crop losses of black gram in Maharashtra & Madhya Pradesh and a study on pigeon pea post-harvest loss in Maharashtra. Also, there is long close partnership between FAO and India, India-FAO cooperation has covered either direct topic related to post-harvest such as improvement of post-harvest technology in rural areas and agribusiness development or in direct issues but related to post-harvest such as education, training, technology transfer, capacity building, climate change, etc...(Wall, G. L. 2011). A lot of research organizations that are (separately) mandated to conduct R&D on packaging, on post-harvest, on food science and on horticultural crops. One of interesting organizations is the International Development Enterprises (IDE), it was the first case that connected technology and R&D expertise from the research organization to those who need it and can operationalize it. The second point is that IDE fulfilled a role that falls somewhere between the conventional mandate of public and private sectors, creating the initial conditions needed for the market to take over and provide services to rural households. The existence of this niche perhaps says something about the shortcomings of existing R&D organizations and their need to adopt a more encompassing mandate (Clark et al., 2003), an example of IDE activities in India is the post-harvest project in Himachal Pradesh.

2.4 Adaptions of new technologies for reducing post-harvest losses

For the ability of adaptions new technology which help in reducing post-harvest losses, a study based on survey conducted with small rice millers of Orissa in 1996 on modern trend of rice processing and by product as step to reduce post-harvest losses due to old traditional milling methods, 33.64 per cent of rice miller owners were interested to modify their rice millers and 16.16 of them were satisfied with the existing systems and have no desire to shift towards new technology (Dash et al. 1996). And this percentage was lower than early percentage of rice huller owner, where 30 per cent of rice huller owner were satisfied over their own practice and didn’t want to shift to modern rice milling (Dash et al. 1993).

A project implemented by International Development Enterprises (IDE) in India with funds received from the Crop Post-Harvest Programme (CPHP) of the Department for International Development (DFID), it was implemented in partnership with international non-governmental organization (IntNGO) based in the UK also with different Indian partners including different research institutes and non-governmental organization (NGO) based in the region Himachal Pradesh to develop and commercialize of suitable cardboard carton packaging for tomatoes as the main task (Phansalkar, S.J. 2003). By the end of the first phase of the project in June 2001 a prototype corrugated cardboard carton (CCC) had been developed and tested. By early 2002, the producers had an agreement with a manufacturer to produce 100,000 cartons with credit arrangements with a local bank. This case study considered new approach that combined both conventional development and aid projects, the geographic focus of the project and selection of local NGO partners built on existing activities and relationships of IDE and Helped the poor and non-poor cope with environmental policy changes (Hall et al., 2003)

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Based on the principle of direct evaporative cooling zero energy cool chambers have been developed. It does not require any electricity or power to operate, materials required like bricks, sand, bamboo etc. available easily and cheaply, Cool chambers can reduce temperature by 10- C and maintain high humidity of about 95 per cent that can increase shelf life and retain quality of horticultural produce. National Horticulture Board is giving 100 per cent grant in aid for the benefit of the farmer. (Kitinoja et al., 2011; Roy and Pal, 1991), later Kaushalya Foundation revisited the idea and has completed the constructed 300 PZECC out of 500 for farmers in Patna, Naland and Vaishali district in Bihar. Other simple technology was a simple shade structure for field packing results in 1% weight losses for spinach as compared to 5% weight loss when packed during the same time period under sun (Kitinoja et al., 2010). With near cooling concept, a cool storage shed introduced by CTI (Compatible Technology International ) the international non-profit volunteer organization, CTI’s cool storage shed make farmers can extend the shelf-life of their fruits and vegetables by storing their crops just 1, 2 or 3 additional months, they can sell their harvest in the off season, when market prices are much higher. Additionally, farmers using the storage shed have more time to process their crops into value-added products. The cool storage shed is currently used in India, where it’s enabled farmers to triple their earnings, CTI primarily is focusing on helping small farmers address their post-harvest challenges (CTI, 2013).

For technology produced and distributed by government, Ayyappan (2012) mentioned that ICAR Developed and commercialized around 60 processing machineries and technologies for post-harvest loss reduction and value addition.

Along the lines of technology introduced to India for reducing post-harvest losses, IRRI showed safe storage in the smaller SuperGrainbags (60 kg) as hermetic storage of rice and corn seed with good results for long storage periods of 90-280 days with germination rates at the end of the period from 95 to 98.3 per cent. SuperGrainbags are now used on a large scale by Bayer CropSciences for rice seed storage in India (Rickman and Aquino, 2004; Villers and Gummert, 2009).

In some cases not all technology available lead to reduction in post-harvest losses, farmers from Maharashtra indicated that manual threshing results in fewer losses compared to machine threshing. This is due to less breakage, splitting and blowing away of grains. However, farmers prefer machine threshing over manual threshing in spite of higher losses as it saves time and contains less soil in the final produce, thus ensuring better rate in the market (MART, 2012).

2.5 Private sector

The Information System e-Chaupal, a project launched by the ITC, which works with men and women producers and rural organizations. ITC's International Business Division, one of India's largest exporters of agricultural commodities, has conceived e-Chaupal (Chaupal means a common sitting place in an Indian village) as a more efficient supply chain aimed at delivering value to its customers around the world on a sustainable basis (ITC, 2013). E-Chaupal today reaches out to, and empowers, over 3.5 million farmers and over 31,000 villages by enabling them to access crop-specific,

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customized and comprehensive information in their local language. Vernacular Web sites relating to each agricultural crop that ITC deals in, have been created by the Company, and provide real-time information to even the smallest marginal farmers concerning: prevailing Indian and international crop prices and price trends; expert knowledge on best farming practices, and micro-level weather forecasts. This significantly improves farmers’ decision-making ability, thereby helping to better align their agricultural produce to market demand while ensuring better quality, productivity and improved prices.

For Post-harvest best management, technical aids and practices, many organizations provide different kind of help, Navdanya, a research organisation based in Dehradun, Uttaranchal, India has made a difference through its interventions. Navdanya has been promoting ecological agriculture through farmer friendly methods, this also includes post-harvest management and sustainable (Bhatt, 2004). Other few local success stories, including the use of information technology (IT) kiosks in India (Toyama et al., 2004)

Sir Ratan Tata Trust which funded Improving vegetable production and consumption for sustainable rural livelihoods project in Jharkhand and Punjab started on 2008 till 2013 and coordinated by AVRDC, The World Vegetable Center, (AVRDC, 2012).

2.6 Gender and post-harvest losses General female share of the agricultural labour force has increased slightly during the past three decades. The female share in India has remained steady at just over 30 percent, where, the population of agricultural workers in India is estimated to be about 207 million, of which about 92 million are women. Fifty per cent of women workers are labourers, 37 percent are cultivators, two percent are engaged in animal husbandry, fishery and forestry and 11 percent involved in other activities. In time-use surveys that cover all agricultural activities, in India, estimates of the time contribution of women to agricultural activities was 32 percent (Kachru, 2005; FAO, 2011). in India, women normally participation is more in horticultural sector than the food grain production; however most of the post-harvest activities either related to food grains, horticulture, livestock and fishery is dealt by women labors, in extension activities the women is now the centre point and activities are being planned keeping her in view e.g. under the project standardization of women specific field practices in rice in Orissa revealed women of family contributed highest hours per season (61.7) in harvesting and post harvesting operations of rice and participated lowest in land preparation. (Thakur, 2013)

The post-harvest management and loss prevention of food grain is prime responsibility of farmwomen as operations viz. Winnowing, drying and storage of produce are predominantly performed by them. Due to illiteracy, ignorance and lack of exposure of technology million ton of food grains are either damaged or lost. Therefore, it is utmost needed to assess the existing knowledge and level of adoption of post-harvest technology by the farmwomen, which provide desired technological empowerment to

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farmwomen, e.g. in Rajasthan, majority of the farmwomen were illiterate (61.11 per cent) (Sandhya and Dashora, 2003).

A study conducted on 2999 farm families in rural Punjab to indicate an active participation of women in most of the selected activities in the area of post harvesting, the results varied between zones but the women were found to contribute substantially in drying, storage and cleaning. In other activities majority of the women were working with male members. However, least participation was reported in processing and marketing. There was a need to technically arm women in post-harvest know-how so as to help in reducing losses during storage. This shall not only reduce economic losses but help in maintaining family food security (Sidhu, 2007).

During a study conducted in Maharashtra in 2011 for a total sample of 30 villages and 150 farmers, Gender roles were relatively clearly defined in terms of pigeon pea cultivation, ownership of resources, decision‐making with respect to different resources and utilization of resources. Land preparation, selection of variety of pigeon pea, inter‐culture operations, harvesting, transport of pigeon pea produce, and seed selection and storage were the prerogative of men. In‐hand weeding operations, sowing seeds, threshing and winnowing operations, and labour force hiring were jointly decided. Women were generally consulted regarding the education and marriage of children, and these matters were jointly settled (Rani, 2011).

On the other hand, a few numbers of small tools and equipment have been designed by ICAR institutes, Universities and other agencies/industries. Some of them which can be easily used by women for instance, pedal operated thresher, hanging type grain cleaner, tubular maize sheller and groundnut decorticator (Sundaram, 2013), so that, Bhatt (2013) and Singh (2013) suggested some of the areas that would be focused for empowerment of Indian farmers women including and not limited to tools and equipment where evaluate, refine and develop women friendly tools and equipment are important for drudgery reduction in agricultural operations. Also, more need towards post-harvest management and value addition to lead in r low cost, eco-friendly storage practices, packaging and processing etc. Beside, Screening the existing technologies and developing inventory by documenting women specific technologies which are relatively simplified, economical in terms of time and resources, efficient and increasing women employment which will also serve the purpose of setting research priorities suitable for women in post-harvest sector.

2.7 Economic losses Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) addressed the absence of storage facilities which has led to the rotting of thousands of tons of food grains in recent years. According to the report submitted in May 2013, wheat worth $ 4.7 million had rotten due to damaged 17,423 tonne of wheat within three years from 2008 to 2011, which was because of the poor management by government agencies. The report stated that government agencies failed to maintain food grains stock in proper health in Haryana and Punjab where grains left in open storage with inadequate storage worries (CAG, 2013). Many similar cases have been cited also in different places e.g. Hindustan Times

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reported on July 2010 that about (1,068 million tons of food grains were found damaged in Food Corporation of India (FCI) depots, enough to feed over six hundred thousand people for over ten years(Hindustan Times, 2010), which indicate that indigenous storage structures are not suitable in some places for storing grains for very long periods and more significance of improved storage structures and scientific storage of grains in form of warehouses are required.

In individual estimation of economic value of the losses in India as of May 2009 price index, the total post-harvest losses within the country was about $ 6,830 million (table 3) (CIPHET, 2010), and this amount much lower than the economic loss calculated later by Rajasri et al (2010) and ASSOCHAM (2013) where the economic losses were $16,000 million and $33,745 million for food grains and fruit/vegetable respectively.

Table 3 post-harvest losses for major crop/commodities, 2010

Crop / commodity Estimate of economic value of the losses, $ million dollar

Cereals 1,949

Pulses 268

Oilseeds 790

Fruits 1,151

Vegetables 908

Spices and plantation crops 892

Livestock produce 872

Total 6,830

In same project which conducted by ministry of agriculture and carried on by CIPHET (CIPHET, 2010), Average losses as reported that time in comparison with post-harvest losses in 2004 as data released by Department of Agriculture and Cooperation, Ministry of Agriculture (DAC, 2004) presented in table 4.

Table 4 Average post-harvest losses in major food grain from two different sources losses in two different years.

Major Foodgrains Average post-harvest losses, %

(DAC, 2004)

Average post-harvest losses, %

(CIPHET, 2010)

Wheat 8 6

Rice 11 5.2

Maize 7.5 4.1

Jowar 10 3.9

Bajra 6 4.8

Gram 9 4.3

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Other Pulses 9.50 5.67

In CIPHET, 2010, the concluded resulted came from study which conducted from 2005-2007 and this not far from the year where DAC conducted it’s study, however there is differences in post harvesting losses and the great reduction in their amount not logic as same methodologies have been used in both surveys.

Contrariwise, there are advantages in using better post-harvest management, e.g. Agro-processing centre in each village generating employment for 2-10 persons costing $ 1 to 1.5 million, modernization of rice mills has led to advantage of about $ 2,296 million/annum by way of higher rice & rice bran oil recovery, better quality (Ayyappan (2012).

3- Policies

India had already invested heavily in irrigation, electricity, roads, and human capital prior to the Green Revolution. More efforts are needed towards post-harvest now. Initial subsidies in credit, fertilizer, and irrigation helped farmers, especially the smallholders, to adopt the new technologies. The credit policy of the government is to provide timely and adequate credit to them for increasing agricultural production and productivity. Agricultural credit is disbursed through a multi-agency network consisting of Commercial Banks, Regional Rural Banks and Cooperatives. However , Small farms are often losers in the initial adoption stage of a new technology because the increased supply of agricultural products from large farms that have benefited from new technologies pushes prices down (Kachru, 2005; Fan et al., 2007). Other policies related to post-harvest are; the reduction in import duty on capital goods for agro-processing industries; cheaper imports of packaging materials; Deregulation of some agro industries from the small scale sector etc. beside many thrust areas identified for exports. Free Trade Zones (FTZ) and Export Processing Zones (EPZ) have been set up with the entire necessary infrastructure. different recent actions reported by various ministries, department and divisions of Agricultural & Cooperation included but not limited to; Skill based training for farmers and youth in areas like post-harvest management, improving quality certification for better marketing opportunities; Training of farmers for adopting practices which would result in minimizing post-harvest losses; modernization of cold storage and processing facilities in the country to minimize post-harvest losses in perishable agricultural produce (DAC, 2007). more initiatives had been taken by the Government i.e. establishing the Food Corporation of India (FCI) in 1965 with the purpose of effective price support operations for safeguarding the interests of the farmers, distribution of food grains throughout the country via the Public Distribution System (PDS) and maintaining a satisfactory level of operational and buffer stocks of food grains to ensure national food security, however, many voices are asking for better and the ideal food grains policy which ought to support government to maintain a buffer with the aim of using it to hold down prices during times of food shortage, and to make sure that the poor and the vulnerable have access to food at all times (Basu, 2011; Chatterjee, 2013).

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different recent actions reported as well by various ministries, department and divisions of Agricultural & Cooperation included but not limited to; Skill based training for farmers and youth in areas like post-harvest management, improving quality certification for better marketing opportunities; Training of farmers for adopting practices which would result in minimizing post-harvest losses; modernization of cold storage and processing facilities in the country to minimize post-harvest losses in perishable agricultural produce (DAC, 2007). Recently, the most important pronged strategy from government to reduce losses occur in the entire food supply-chain from production to consumption are; compression of the supply-chain by linking producers and markets; promoting processing in production catchments to add value before the produce is marketed; and developing small-scale processing refrigerated chambers or cold storage using conventional and non-conventional sources is required to reduce post-harvest losses. This would require greater attention to post-harvest engineering research and development (Directorate of Economics and Statistics. 2013).

4. Conclusion and recommendations Conclusion and recommendations based on literature review analysis and or have suggested by different authors are summarized as follow:

1- It was clear that there is some conflict in data collected and figures related to post-harvest losses, the current situation of post-harvest losses should be updated with using better methodologies and assessment tools in future.

2- Reducing food loss and waste requires action by a wide range of researchers, households, private sector, policymakers, farmers, extension services, and more. It also requires changes in technology, practices, behavior, and policy. These factors suggest that no single individual or group can sufficiently tackle this problem alone; collaboration is needed. They can provide more than solution which cannot be done by individual efforts. Also, Post-harvest loss interventions should be appropriate to the socioeconomic, business, and political context of a country as suggested by Kitinoja et al. (2011).

3- More technology adaptation efforts required to be undertaken by technology-generating laboratories through a field-level program of adaptive research, this technology should be in community-based production systems, to make them fully competitive in local markets. This can happen with better linkages with laboratories, financial institutions, and governmental bodies as a way of continuously improving of the competitiveness of the local system. Besides, the developed and promoted technology should come as low cost devices, practical and effective for use at farmer level.

4- Searching for innovated ideas and prototypes in and outside India to bring them to the community for enhancing the post-harvest activities and reducing losses to bring

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them to the community, specially, there are evidences that various technologies are exist but lab to community transfer has not happened yet.

5- The post-harvest system in India is ready for more effective Local knowledge networks. Remarkable achievements from local grassroots and non-governmental organization (NGO) were identified and they had already established a relationship with farmers and self-help groups, more efforts needed to enhance and to widely distribute their rules.

6- Inspectors and observers to address the defects located in the post-harvest sector and causes of loss, and to watch the performance of governmental / international organization activities and their impact, they could be independent local organization, NGOs etc….

7- The rule of farmwomen, businesswomen, female stalk-holder is clear, however, no much studies cited their suggested situation in improving post-harvest sector or how they can share in reduce post-harvest losses in India.

8- Develop and promote package of practice based on area specific needs and identified challenges, followed by training to Enhance skills and knowledge of farmers in post-harvest management.

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