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Cold chain saves upto 50 per cent of post-harvest fruit and veg losses
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Thursday, 04 December, 2014, 08 : 00 AM [IST]
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Our Bureau, New Delhi
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fiogf49gjkf0d Depending upon the type of crop, cold chain facilities have been shown to save upto 50 per cent of the harvest. The annual post-harvest fruit and vegetable losses incurred by West Bengal, which is facing a 12 lakh metric-tonne shortfall as far as cold storage capacity is concerned, exceed Rs 13,600 crore.
By 2012, India had approximately 6,300 cold storage facilities, with a capacity of 30.11 million metric tonnes. Approximately 60 per cent of the total number of facilities is located in just four states - Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat, West Bengal and Punjab.
In 2013, West Bengal was India’s leading horticulture-producing state, with over 27,000 tonnes of fruit and vegetables produced across the state, accounting for over 10 per cent share across India. But the state has only 5,682 million metric tonnes of functioning cold storage capacity.
The United Kingdom’s Institution of Mechanical Engineers, which has over 2,000 members in India and is focussing on the country for growth and research, released a report, titled ‘A Tank of Cold: Cleantech Leapfrog to a More Food-secure World’.
It highlighted that the lack of proper handling, coupled with an inadequate cold and frozen supply chain (or cold chain), leads to the loss of as much as half the perishable food produced in India each year.
Key findings of the report
- India is the world’s largest producer of milk, and is second only to China in fruit and vegetables. Yet agriculture, which makes up 53 per cent of the workforce, generates just 15 per cent of the gross domestic product (GDP);
- The country is a huge exporter of grains, but exports very little horticultural produce. Of the total agricultural exports of $37 billion, fruit and vegetables account for just $1-1.5 billion. One reason is that upto 50 per cent of the produce could be lost in the supply chain before reaching the consumers, at a cost of approximately $4.5 billion;
- About 75-80 per cent of the refrigerated warehouses in India are suitable only to store potatoes, a commodity that generates only 20 per cent of the agricultural revenue. As a result, only four million of the 104 million tonnes of fresh produce transported in India every year does so in a cold chain. This compares unfavourably with developed economies, where typically between 85-90 per cent of the fresh produce is transported cold, and
- Only 10–11 per cent of the fruit and vegetables produced in India use cold storage. Storage capacity needs to increase 40 per cent to avoid wastage. There is more fruit and vegetable waste in the southern and western regions of India due to the tropical and humid climate
The Institution of Mechanical Engineers is called for urgent action to encourage the roll out of sustainable cold chain in India, in order to prevent unnecessary food loss, help alleviate hunger and improve global food security.
Dr Tim Fox, head of energy and environment, Institution of Mechanical Engineers, said, “We currently produce enough food, but the tragedy is that too much of it is lost unnecessarily through spoilage in developing countries, where it is most needed, due to inadequate infrastructure and in particular a lack of cold and frozen supply chains.”
“Investment in cold chain infrastructure driven by renewable energy is the key to preventing these losses, alleviating world hunger, improving health through better nutrition and air quality,” he added.
“The Indian government, as well as non-governmental organisations (NGO) involved in development initiatives and retailers establishing supply chains, need to prioritise investment into affordable, reliable and sustainable cold chain infrastructure,” Dr Fox said.
“This includes combining renewable energy with innovative technologies for producing both power and cooling, such as for example cryogenic energy storage using liquid air or nitrogen,” he added.
“At today’s prices, using the cryogenic engine technology highlighted in our new report to provide the cooling of large refrigerated lorries or rail containers would cost between a fifth and a third of using diesel for the same job,” Dr Fox stated.
“It has the added benefit of zero-emission of pollutants at the point of use. When combined with the increased income to farmers from getting more produce to market, this makes economic as well as environmental sense,” he added.
“Getting started by harnessing the waste cold available at liquefied natural gas (LNG) re-gasification plants to produce the cryogen needed leads to further financial gains, since up to two-thirds of the energy used in the process can be saved,” Dr Fox said.
“India is well placed to take this opportunity as it has both the LNG infrastructure and the engineering talent to make it happen. The country also has a substantial amount of surplus nitrogen production capacity that could be used to get started on using this technology,” he added.
India’s investment in cold chain is forecast to be $15 billion over the next five years, and in order to ensure this investment is sustainable and cost-effective in the long- as well as short-term. It must focus on powering these cold chains using renewable energy sources.
Renewable energy resources are available in abundance in India, and the key to unlocking sustainable cold chains is to develop technology that can either use these directly, such as cooling through solar-driven absorption, or to power existing or new technologies through electricity generation.
The Indian electricity grid is extremely inefficient, and loses 30 per cent of its power during transmission on an average, compared to about six per cent in the United Kingdom.
The Institution’s key recommendations in this new report are:
- The governments of newly-emerging and rapidly-industrialising economies must prioritise support investment in cold chain infrastructure to improve food security, underpin development and help alleviate poverty;
- Donor countries’ governments and development NGOs must support and incentivise aid recipients to develop sustainable cold chains using renewable energy and waste cold, and
- The UK’s engineering community should come together to define in detail the potential opportunities a joined-up cold economy presents for the developed and developing world
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