C. Maheshwar

Anglo Eastern Maritime Academy

Inter Solar India Mumbai

13-15 December 2011

The apples that are available in today’s supermarkets in India could be as old as six years and could have been grown in apple orchards in New Zealand and stored in cold storages using Controlled Atmosphere.

They would look and taste as if they were plucked from the apple orchard yesterday.

That is the Power of Reefer Technology!

This presentation is dedicated to the

thousands of Indian farmers involved in growing fruits and

vegetables who have committed suicide in the last ten years due

to market compulsions and post

harvest losses.

About 100,000 farmers have committed suicide between 1993-2003.

In every subsequent year, there are about 16,000 suicides.

The reason is poor returns due to excessive dependence on natural elements, market compulsions and post harvest losses.

An average farmer gets only 28% of what the consumer pays.

He lives in a negative economy and needs to be upgraded into survival economy and then into positive economy.

Second largest producer in the world of fruits and vegetables - 135 million MT

Second highest producer of milk

Fifth largest producer of eggs

Sixth largest producer of fish – 5.2 million MT

Cold storages available for only 10% of the produce.

Milk cold storage capacity of 70,000 tonnes

Investments required to store 20% of surplus-US$100 million_

Needs US$ 75 million investment to preserve.

The story goes on and on…………

Cold chain is a logistic system that provides a series of facilities for maintaining ideal storage conditions for perishables from the point of origin to the point of consumption in the food supply chain.

The chain needs to start at the farm level (e.g. harvest methods, pre-cooling) and cover up to the consumer level or at least to the retail level.

A well-organized cold chain reduces spoilage, retains the quality of the harvested products and guarantees a cost efficient delivery to the consumer given adequate attention for customer service. IF ANY OF THE LINKS IS MISSING OR IS WEAK, THE WHOLE SYSTEM FAILS.

About 30% of India’s production of fruits and vegetables gets wasted because of poor post harvest management practices.

The value is about US$ 13 billion every year.

Tomatoes, Cauliflowers, onions and watermelons are thrown on the highway because it is not worth the effort to transport it to the markets.

Cold storages are uneconomical to run, inadequate and are located far away from the farms and harvested products have to endure the ambient heat.

India produced about 6.4 million tonnes of onion in 2005, out of which, 3.3 million tonnes was used for domestic consumption, 0.3 million tonnes as processed products, 1.1 million tonnes was exported and the remaining 1.7 million tonnes perished as waste.

There is an enormous wastage of the highly perishable onion crop due to abysmal or virtually non-existent storage facilities.

Maharashtra, producing almost a quarter of the country’s onion output loses about 50% of production each year due to poor storage facilities.

Suicides of onion farmers in Maharashtra is no longer a shocking news.

Rajasthan, the fourth largest producing state does not have a single cold storage unit and farmers are forced to dump their produce at distress prices, leaving them at the mercy of the traders.

The retail prices of onions fluctuate between US$ 1.0 during shortage period to US$ 0.1 per kg during glut period while the farmer himself getting a distress price of US$ 0.01 (1 cent) per kg of produce.

Often onions are dumped along the highway as the onion prices do not cover even the transport expenses incurred by the farmers who get stuck in a vicious debt trap.

The onion story gets replicated for tomatoes, cauliflowers, watermelons, etc.

Potato is the world’s fourth largest food crop harvested, after maize, wheat and rice.

Year 2005 saw a world potato production of 323 million tonnes, with India being the world’s third largest producer of potato.

The world potato processing industry requires particular varieties of potato grown under custom practices which results in specifications like large tuber size, low sugar etc. and requiring Controlled Atmosphere storage.

Since the potato varieties grown in India do not adhere to the above specifications and the traditional methods of potato storage in India further degrade the quality, they are used only for domestic consumption, but not for processing or export.

Indian Mango varieties are the favorites of world food connoisseurs. India has exported 60,000 tonnes of mangoes, but the exports have been limited to Bangladesh and other Asian countries.

The major markets in UK, USA and Japan are still eluding Indian exporters. Though these countries have opened up their doors to Indian mangoes, exporters are unable to exploit the potential, mainly because of lack of treatment facilities stipulated by the importers.

The first consignment of mangoes to Japan after almost 20 years consisted of 4 tonnes of 6 various varieties. However, 80% of this cargo was rejected and returned because of presence of black spots. Indian mango exports to US have not yet taken off in a big way because of absence of Vapour Heat Treatment and irradiation facilities in India.

Realising that mangoes fetch more profits than even the petroleum products, Reliance has embarked on Asia’s largest mango plantation covering 470 acres at its Jamnagar refinery complex.

Out of the first year’s production of a mango crop of 387 tonnes, 384 tonnes were supplied to the company township and other retail chain stores within India. 3 tonnes were exported to Harrods, the famous London department store.

They exported about 100 tonnes next year to Harrods as against their demand of 300 tonnes. While Reliance sold mangoes at US$ 0.9 per kg, Harrods was able to retail the same for US$ 55 per dozen to the local Asian community.

Reliance has set up its own processing unit and has its own reefer vans and cold storage facilities.

The wastage of perishables in India is attributed to gaps in Cold Chain such as:

poor marketing infrastructure insufficient cold storage capacity unavailability of cold storages in close

proximity to farms poor transportation infrastructure Lack of quality consciousness and

awarenessThis results in instability in prices, farmers not getting remunerative prices, rural impoverishment resulting in farmers’ frustrations and suicides.

Farmer Village agent at Taluka Level

Market agent at Mandi level Wholesaler Semi-Wholesaler Retailer Consumer Contributes to Product Deterioration,

especially in case of perishable products like fruits and vegetables due to extended post harvest time lag without any value addition.

What we need is a seamless gap-free cold chain.

About one-third of these post harvest losses of perishable products can be reduced by using Solar Powered Refrigerated Containers to transport harvested products from farms to cold storages.

Optimum usage of the containers can yield an annual savings of about US$ 4.5 billion.

The investment is US$ 2.5 billion and the payback period is just 6-9 months.

External Dimensions: 20x8x8.5 Ft. Internal Dimensions: 18x7.5x7 Ft. Internal Volume: 1000 Cu. Ft. Payload Capacity: 21350 Kgs Gross Weight: 24000 Kgs Temperature : -25 To +35 Deg C Power Consumption: 3-5 KWh

Total Annual Losses in Fruits and Vegetables: 40 million MT of Value: US$ 13 bn (30% of total production)

Payload per Reefer Container: 21 MT Containerisability Factor of Fruits &

Vegetables: 0.5 No. Of Containers Required to transport the

total produce: 16 million No. Of Containers required if each Container

makes one trip a day: 42,000 Cost of a 20 ft. Container with Solar PV

panel: $ 15,000+$ 37,400=$ 52,400 Cost of 42,000 Containers: $ 2.2 bn Reduction in Post Harvest Losses achieved

per year: $ 4.5 bn (35% of Total Losses). Payback Period: 0.5 years or 6 months

Depleting Fossil Fuels

Growing Environmental Concerns

Erratic and Unreliable Grid Power

The solar energy available averages 5.0 kw/sq. m/day

India has abundant solar resources, receiving about 3000 hours of sunshine every year,

Has a potential of about 20 MW per sq km

It is expected that with the new generation technology with concentration equivalent of more than 1,600 times the sun's energy onto solar cells, it would be possible to produce electricity at a wholesale cost of US $0.05 per kilowatt-hour (kWh)

Cost Of 1 Kwh Using DG Set At Current Bunker Prices: 15 Ct

Cost Of Running Reefer Container Per Hour @5kwh: 75 Ct Cost Of Running Reefer Container Per Day (12 Hrs.): $9 Cost Of Running Reefer Container Per Year (365 Days):

$3285 Cost Of Running Reefer Container Using Solar Power: Nil Cost of fitting Solar PV panel on a 20 ft Reefer container:

$ 37,400 Payback Period Of Solar Power Vs. DG Set: 37400/3285=

11.6 Years (This excludes the cost of DG set, maintenance and depreciation).

Other long term environmental and social gains.Note: Bunker prices are always fluctuating and move upwards, with downward movement of payback period.

Refrigerated Containers: upto 42,000 to start with

Solar PV Panels: upto 18.4 million square feet

The 69% of Indian population depending upon agriculture and allied activities will be lifted up into positive economy.

Better quality and nutritious food for our population.

Better health standards. Increase in awareness of the

availability and use of technology for preservation of food products.

Better export potential and increased foreign exchange earnings.

This could be our End Consumer!

This is not THE END

This is a NEW BEGINING!

NamasteNamaste