Market access challenges for agricultural produces
The current method of post-harvest collection, processing, storage and transportation of the fruits and vegetables by farming community, intermediaries and traders is prone to poor handling, delay, price irregularities, inappropriate stockpiling and quality degradation. This has led to reduced value for money of this produce for the citizens or retail customers and marginal financial realisation by the farmers. The supply and distribution channel is not streamlined and suffers from lack of infrastructure and increase in waste of farm produces.
The accessibility and value of farm produces is further challenged by poor transportation availability by the farming community as well as limited provision of cleaning, processing, grading and storing facilities to comply with the quality standards. Furthermore there is no tracking of the farm produces by the farmers or farmers’ cooperative at the upazila or district level against the market demand, which has resulted in the pricing model at the mercy of the intermediaries in most of the situations. The producers typically don’t have direct access to the consumers or retail market or wholesalers.
This can be transformed through setting up of privately managed agro-logistics hub in each district, that would act as an information exchange platform with a B2B model and connect all stakeholders in the supply chain like farmers, traders, wholesalers, retailers and consumers as well as the Government bodies. The agro-logistics hub would facilitate in the collection, processing, grading and storage of the farm produce, while complying with the food quality norms and ensuring better market value.
Read this: Agri-Logistics Challenges in India
How the market access can be improved through private intervention
The privately managed agri-logistics hubs can be set up, one in each district, and they will act as the central platform of the new market ecosystem for interaction and collaboration between the farmers, wholesalers, retain chains and consumers. This would ensure purchasing of the farm produces from the registered farmers at a pre-determined and agreed price at the respective hubs, as well as tracking and monitoring of the sales and production data. There can be provision for direct selling, fulfillment of direct orders and discounted selling both in online and offline mode.
The recent trend is emerging under the growing convergence of digital technology in agri-logistics. These private agri-logistics hubs would have technology enabled facilities for collection, dehydration, testing, sorting, grading and packaging, and warehouse & logistics. Multifold benefits are envisaged for the consumers, farming community, business community and government, some of which are follows:
- More reliable and trustworthy system with both quality and source traceability of purchased fruits and vegetables
- Ease of access to quality produces with better value for money and minimum waste
- Enhanced return on investment in seeds, fertiliser and land development, leading to minimal credit or loan based purchase
- Ease of access to market economy with a greater customer base and diversification choices
- Reduction in waste leading to growth in sales volume
- Consolidation of the intermediaries leading to consistent supply chain and marketing margin across different districts
