India’s Third Agricultural Revolution: doubling farmers’ incomes through clean cold chains
This report by David Strahan of Birmingham Energy Institute, University of Birmingham, UK, was reviewed in the TAAI journal Ag4Dev No 36, ersion.pdf under Bookstack page 53. The report is available in full on-line.
In February 2016, India’s Prime Minister Modi declared: “I wish to double the income of farmers by 2022 when India will celebrate 75 years of its independence”. The following month he set out a seven-point plan to achieve that target. One of the plan’s key measures is to develop ‘cold chains’ – an integrated network of refrigerated buildings and vehicles to transport produce from farm to shop quickly and in good condition. Currently, India’s cold-chain capacity is minimal, and as much as 40% of some harvested crops have to be discarded before reaching any consumer. This huge waste of food and loss of revenue has serious consequences for agricultural resources and carbon emissions.
This report is the result of studies by the University of Birmingham, UK giveernment agaencies, the state government of Haryana and India’s National Centre for Cold-chain Development. Its purpose was to identify how an Indo-British partnership can meet the challenge of developing sustainable cold chains in India.
The benefits of cold chain in India have already been demonstrated: reduced wastage by 75% and ten-fold increase in profits at farm gate. However, conventional cold-chain technologies are highly polluting. There is a need for clean – low-carbon and zero-emission – cold chains to sustainably double farm incomes.
Clean cold technologies already exist, several are powered by solar photovoltaics, others cooling though solar-powered absorption chilling (which converts sunlight directly into cooling without an intermediate electrical stage) and others that power off-grid refrigeration through biomass gasification.The review also covers a range of other technologies being tested. The overall aim is to provide clean cooling to India’s new cold chains.
The report’s key recommendation is to create a series of regional ‘living labs’ called the India Clean Cold Chain Centres (I4C). The report concludes that there is a strong case for the British and Indian governments to support a centre to demonstrate clean cold chain and to accelerate its deployment. If successful, the same approach could be applied in other countries with rapidly emerging economies.
[Thanks to review by Paul H]
