Article
India’s new grain storage plan
Published: 02/05/2024
Indian prime minister, Narendra Modi, recently announced the world’s largest grain storage plan in the co-operative sector and said it could potentially be a game-changer for the country, with positive ramifications for the domestic economy at large.
As far back as 1999, the World Bank found that India’s post-harvest losses could feed one-third of the country’s poor for almost a year. A 2015 government report found that the post-harvest loss in cereals was 4,65 to 5,99%. Similarly, a study by the National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD) in 2022 discovered a loss of 3,89 to 5,92% in cereals. However, the Dalwai Committee of 2017 observed that actual post-harvest losses are likely to be much higher, estimating overall losses in cereals as high as 44,6%. The losses are a result of deficiencies in the national post-harvest infrastructure as the country’s storage capacity is considerably low.
The proposed scheme’s focus on co-operatives is notable. Since a staggering 90% of Indian producers are small and marginal, many Indian producers find the existing post-harvest infrastructure inaccessible. Therefore, driven by the producers themselves, cooperatives appear to be an effective means to serve producers. The current announcement also reinforces the outlook of producer-centric agriculture.
Therefore, it is hoped that other segments of the post-harvest value chain will receive similar policy attention in a manner that converges different policies at both the planning and implementation levels. At least 700 lakh (hundred thousand) tonnes of storage capacity will be created over the next five years in the co-operative sector by constructing thousands of godowns (a type of warehouse in India) and other warehouses, Modi said. He also laid the foundation stone for an additional 500 primary agricultural credit societies across the country for the creation of godowns. – Times of India and Hindustan Times