OdishaPlus Bureau
The seminar on ‘Post Harvest Management for Loss Reduction in Agriculture and Allied Sectors’ held under Krushi Odisha 2020 was an engaging panel to attend. The discussion regarding crop loss, post harvest management, diversification from agriculture to allied sectors were some of the key issues discussed at length during the seminar. The speakers on the session included Dr. RK Sharma, Former Director National Horticulture Board, Prof. Sanjay K. Dash, Dean CAET, OUAT (moderator),Mr. Dattatray More, Product Head, EcoFrost, Ecozen Solutions, Mr. Kiran Gubba, Managing Director, Gubba Cold Storage Pvt. Ltd. and Mr. Aditya Dash, Managing Director, Ram’s Assorted Cold Storage Ltd. (RASCL).
Dr. RK Sharma who is the former Director of the National Horticulture Board was also the horticulture advisor to the Australian Govt. for five years. He has also worked with the UNFPO, so he came with much insight into post harvest management and storage solutions. He opined that reducing crop loss can be achieved by identification of proper technology of post harvest management and storage. He advocated creation and management of infrastructure to store crops for a longer period. He informed that 40 percent of crop loss happens due to post harvest and processing issues.
Dr. Sharma talked of value addition to crops by sorting, grading, packaging, transport, and storage in a proper manner. “Sprouting of vegetables and damage to fruits occurs by lackadaisical attitude of loading, sorting and storing of such vegetables and fruits. To avoid damage, pre-cooling of vegetables and fruits is essential”.
Mr. Dattatray More is an M.Tech from IIT Kharagpur. He has domain experience in various fields like sales, marketing, business development, procurement, supply chain etc. He heads customer support on sale of exotic food, flowers, getting market linkage in domestic and export fields. He said that for a farmer to be profitable, crop selection is necessary. Creation of a disruption in market will lead to profitability. Farmers should be given ample training on harvesting of crop. He also informed the audience of his brand Ecozen which offers solar powered cold storage solutions with added advantages like battery backup, custom room size, modular solar powered cold storage, real time data logging, smartphone controlled cold storage units.
Mr. Kiran Gubba is a fifth generation businessman. His company has a cold storage network across India from the year 1800. In Mr. Kiran’s words, they started from O.7 Million cubic feet and have expanded their cold storage space to a praiseworthy 11 Million cubic feet. “ Almost 99 percent of cold storages available in the country are traditional cold storages. Earlier we had apples from Shimla and Kashmir, now we have apples from Australia, NZ, America, Taiwan and other countries. Our patterns of consumption have increased. The cold storage industry has moved on from traditional to state of the art facilities”, said Mr. Gubba.
Prof. Sanjay K. Dash while moderating the seminar reiterated that post harvest management is of utmost importance. We need to reduce crop loss during post production stage. Scope of post harvest management and value addition is that the product should have desired form with desired packaging while having desired quantity and quality at a desired price.
Prof. Dash further advocated on low cost value addition of perishables by sorting and grading the same while on farm. He also supported the idea of precooling and on farm storage of the crops. He said that the farm should be developed into a packing station and primary processing centre with value addition of waste materials.
Mr. Aditya Dash, a second generation businessman and MD of Royal Sun food exports has a certificate of sustainable agriculture from Scotland University and he has graduated from Washington DC school. He is also an authority member of INTEDA. Mr. Aditya delved on the issues with preservation of agriculture and marine products like ethical usage of preservatives, usage of antibiotics and cooling process. He informed that farmers use ice blocks for cooling marine products where the water leads to weight gain in fish and prawns hence reducing quality.
Mr. Dash further advocated the need for government intervention to resolve export quality issues. He opined that third party certificate schemes need to be subsidized and supported by the govt. “FSSAI standards should be matched with EU standards to make agriculture produce ready for the export market. The government should run MSP programs, enforce domestic regulations on food safety and food products, check the use of unethical practices in its quest to reform the agriculture sector. Lastly, Mr. Dash also suggested that the armed forces be given non vegetarian meals like fish, shrimp, chicken, mutton with their meals in order to spur and demand and production of the same.
‘Krushi Odisha’, the annual flagship five day exhibition cum Agri fest, organized by Dept. of Agriculture and Farmers’ Empowerment, Govt. of Odisha in collaboration with FICCI is being held from 20-24 January 2020 at Janata Maidan, Bhubaneswar. The mega programme which envisages leading farmers to profitability, involves various aspects like farm income, implements, modern technology in farming, financial assistance to farmers and capacity building.