Strengthening India’s food supply chain in challenging times

‘Under these extraordinary lockdown conditions, any strong and organized supply chain would get adversely affected’, says Sanjeev Kumar Chadda IFS, MD, NAFED (National Agricultural Cooperative Marketing Federation of India).

Smoothening supply chain disruptions

Under these extraordinary lockdown conditions, any strong and organized supply chain would get adversely affected. However, the supply chains need to be located all over India in order to avoid long term disruptions on account of long-distance transport. Transport of essential goods through road and train network should be exempted from such lockdowns so as to ensure undisrupted supply of essential goods.

Strengthening India’s warehouse infrastructure

The country has sufficient grains and pulses and despite lockdown there is no impending shortage of food in the country. The mandis have been exempted from the lockdown by the Union Government. However, the wide network of Farmer’s Cooperatives and Farmers Producer Organizations (FPOs) present in the remotest part of the country can be used in ensuring procurement from farmers at farm gate. The decentralization of procurement to the level of Panchayat/Village would do away with requirement of long-distance transport of the produce by the farmers. This would need strengthening of warehousing infrastructure in the catchment area of mandis all over the country. This would ensure better implementation of MSP announced by the Government to the farmers from time to time.

[box type=”shadow” align=”” class=”” width=””]Contributor: Sanjeev Kumar Chadha, IFS, MD, NAFED (National Agricultural Cooperative Marketing Federation of India).[/box]

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of ET Edge Insights, its management, or its members

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