Scope of Supply Chain Management in Fruits and Vegetables in India

Abstract

India is the world largest producer of many fruits and vegetables but there still exist huge gap between per capita demand and supply due to enormous waste during post-harvest storage and handling caused by improper bagging without crating, lack of temperature controlled vehicles, unavailability of cold chain facilities in various parts of country for preserving the produce, along with significant processing of the agricultural produce which results in immense losses to the nation. Hence a proper supply chain management in fruits and vegetables has to be improved in all the stages of the supply by adopting best global practices in storage, packaging, handling, transportation, value added service etc to meet the country's demand of fruits and vegetables. As per this paper important drawbacks of the current supply chain are high level of wastage, quality degradation, poor infrastructural facilities and high cost. Government and private operators have to join hands to improve the physical infrastructure, information sharing and the service required for quality improvement of the supply chain.

Demand Forecasting and Demand Supply Management of Vegetables in India: A Review and Prospect

“…Demand should be calculated and forecast to farmers regularly so that farmers can supply vegetables to market according to demand. In India, there is no practical demand forecasting methods for vegetables (7,8,10), this is the reason most of the times demand and supply are not matching and loss to farmers and consumers. Since vegetables crops are short duration crops and farmed in small areas in large number, the statistical methods that estimates the crop area, yield, market arrival dates will not work for vegetable crops.…”

“…Supply of vegetables must be equal to the demand to bring stability in the market. Factors that affect the supply of vegetables to market are vegetable demand (price), crop area, crop yield, weather conditions, Marketing facilities, transportation, transparency in pricing etc (7). Among these the most important factor that determines the supply is demand, Demand pulls the supply of vegetables to market irrespective to other factors, and if supply increases demand drops down viceversa.…”

“…Price completely depends on the amount of vegetables come to market. Different types of marketing methods are present in India (7,17,5).Each of these have its own advantages and disadvantages, there is no centralized body that controls vegetable prices, on a same day in the same market from trader to trader the price of vegetables varies. Traders, wholesalers and shopkeepers become a syndicate and reduce the prices of vegetables.…”

“…This scheme features the preparation of crop area and productivity estimates using sampling and estimation methodology derived by Indian Agricultural Statistics Research Institute. National Statistical Commission however found some problems with this scheme and also recommended to find other methods to prepare crop area estimates which can be tried out on pilot basis before actually implementing it on a large scale (7,11,12,13) IASRI has developed an alternate methodology called Coordinated Programme on Horticulture Assessment and Management using Geo-informatics with which crop area estimates can be prepared simpler and easier. National Statistical Commission reviewed this method and recommended to implement on pilot basis.…”

“…Supply Chain Management deals with the flow of vegetables from farmers to traders, wholesalers, and retail shops and to consumers (4,5,7). SCM is complex for perishable goods like vegetables.…”