This document summarizes a national summit on cold chain technologies in India. It discusses India's agricultural scenario of producing 400 crops across diverse climates and fragmented farms. It outlines the challenges in replicating the successful ANAND milk cooperative model for agriculture due to issues in establishing collection centers and handling diverse temperature/humidity needs. It then covers emerging storage and transportation technologies as well as challenges around infrastructure, capital access, and monitoring. The document proposes a hub-and-spoke model using optimized solar-powered cold storage, sensing technologies, and mobile monitoring to better link small farmers to organized retail markets while reducing food wastage across the supply chain.

1. 1
National Summit
on
Cold Chain
Emerging Trends and Market
Challenges
Synergy Hall, Hotel Taj Deccan,
Hyderabad
6th February 2013

2. 2
Real Time Tracking &
Traceability : An Automated
Transport System - Journey from
Farmland to the End-User
DSK Rao,
Director, GISPL
AGRIBUSINESS KNOWLEDGE CENTRE(AKC)
(A PPP initiative between NAARM (ICAR) & Gyantech Information Systems
Private Limited( GISPL) , Hyderabad)

3. 3
Agenda
 India s Agricultural Scenario
 Linking Unorganized to Organized – Indian
Success Case Story
 Issues in Replicating ANAND Success Case
Story to Agriculture
 Storage & Transportation Technologies
 Indian Centric Challenges & Suggested
Solution Models
 Track & Trace Technologies & GISPL Pilots
 Way Forward

4. 4
Agenda
 India s Agricultural Scenario
 Linking Unorganized to Organized – Indian
Success Case Story
 Issues in Replicating Success Case Story to
Agriculture
 Storage & Transportation Technologies
 Indian Centric Challenges & Suggested
Solution Models
 Track & Trace Technologies & GISPL Pilots
 Way Forward

5. 5
India s Agricultural Scenario
India with 329 million hectares of geographical
area and 140 million hectares of cultivable land
in 638,000 villages falling in 250,000
Panchayats in 616 districts of 28 states & 7
union territories with 15 Agro Climatic Regions
and 127 Agro Climatic Zones capable of growing
around 400 crops with around 4000 varieties by
125 million farmers of which 87 million farmers
are poor and dependent on rain fed farming.
.
With the RTF(Right-to-food) policy announced
by GoI, how do we feed the 1230 million
population of India today and 1326 million by
2020 on a sustainable basis with 62% of it s
population dependent on Agriculture vis-à-vis
3% in developed countries

6. 6
India s Agricultural Scenario
The Challenge is how do we reach these
125 million farmers especially the 87 million
farmers who are small and poor and increase
their productivity for their improvement and
reduce spoilage & quality of Food to ensure
Food Security. How do we enable backward
& forward Chaining of agriculture produce?
Modern India has an Organized tech savvy
retail sector with a huge appetite for matured
Supply Chain which needs to be fed by an
Unorganized farming system!

7. 7
India s Agricultural Scenario
Unlike establishing Supply Chains and
forward / backward linkages for other
commodities, agriculture produce has a great
challenge due it s perishable nature and
need an entirely different approach in terms
of it s procurement, transportation, Storage
and finally retailing.
GISPL/AKC has been studying on finding
solutions to the Indian Scenario for the last 3
years which is very much different from that
of developed countries

8. 8
India s Agricultural Scenario
India s food grains production itself is about
250 million MT.
It is very essential that we produce, protect,
preserve and bring to our plates the Food
with least wastage.

9. 9
Agenda
 India s Agricultural Scenario
 Linking Unorganized to Organized – Indian
Success Case Story
 Issues in Replicating Success Case Story to
Agriculture
 Storage & Transportation Technologies
 Indian Centric Challenges & Suggested
Solution Models
 Track & Trace Technologies & GISPL Pilots
 Way Forward

10. 10
Linking Unorganized to Organized
– Indian Success Case Story
GISPL/AKC has been working relentlessly to
formulate a Indian centric strategy to
establish backward/forward linkages to the
400 different crops grown in India with about
4000 main varieties.
Fortunately, an excellent technology driven
model for procurement, transportation,
storage / processing and distribution of a
perishable item Milk is available in the form

11. 11
Linking Unorganized to Organized
– Indian Success Case Story
ANAND, Gujarat. Technology driven milk
collection centers at the village level procure
Milk from the Unorganized Villagers after
Testing for FAT Content & SNF and
transported in chilled vans for
Pasteurization and processing which
includes preparation of Value Added
Products & making milk sachets to store
them in cold storages and distributed in cold
vans in a Organized manner!

12. 12
Agenda
 India s Agricultural Scenario
 Linking Unorganized to Organized – Indian
Success Case Story
 Issues in Replicating ANAND Success Case
Story to Agriculture
 Storage & Transportation Technologies
 Indian Centric Challenges & Suggested
Solution Models
 Track & Trace Technologies & GISPL Pilots
 Way Forward

13. 13
Issues in Replicating ANAND
Success Case Story to Agriculture
On scrutiny by GISPL/ AKC on why this
excellent model can not be replicated for
Agriculture Produce, it is observed that the
major bottleneck is in establishing the
Unorganized - Organized interface equivalent
of the Milk Testing & Collection Centres for
the 400 crops which are cultivated randomly
to some extent by the farmers. Grading &
Sorting and Quality Identification &
Aggregation becomes a Challenge with
fragmented uncontrolled current farming.

14. 14
Issues in Replicating ANAND
Success Case Story to Agriculture
Coupled with this, we also have different
optimum temperature & humidity levels for
each of the agriculture produce. Handling &
Transportation and associated Wastages
also become important, especially in case of
F&V items. Due to these factors, it may be
interesting to know that the current 5400
storage facilities in the country with a
capacity of 23.66 million MT which is about
9% of Food Production are partially utilized!

15. 15
Agenda
 India s Agricultural Scenario
 Linking Unorganized to Organized – Indian
Success Case Story
 Issues in Replicating ANAND Success Case
Story to Agriculture
 Storage & Transportation Technologies
 Indian Centric Challenges & Suggested
Solution Models
 Track & Trace Technologies & GISPL Pilots
 Way Forward

16. 16
Storage & Transportation
Technologies
Storage Technologies:
 Warehouses, Godowns, Silos
 Cold Storages with Multiple Chambers
 Controlled Atmosphere Units
 Vacuum Technologies
 Open Yards (Risky)
It is observed that the current technologies for Cold Storages is not
optimized for Energy Needs and use about 40% more energy.
CA units, which involve pumping out oxygen and inserting some inert
gas like nitrogen are slowly entering Indian Markets

17. 17
Storage & Transportation
Technologies
Transportation : India lacks Cold vans/
carriages for long haul of Agriculture
Produce, especially F&V, Meat Products,
Fish & Sea Foods, Eggs etc
Coupled with this shortage is the bad
infrastructure in terms of Roads etc. The
situation however is improving with
improvements and Innovations for Indian
Needs

18. 18
Storage & Transportation
Technologies

19. 19
Storage & Transportation
Technologies

20. 20
Storage & Transportation
Technologies

21. vQm: optimum protection
Once your food is insect free..
How to preserve it?
vQm Packaging
A unique vacuum packaging system for
large volumes.
- no re-infestation
- no mould or funghi growth
- extended shelf-life
- not exposed to external environment

22. 22
Agenda
 India s Agricultural Scenario
 Linking Unorganized to Organized – Indian
Success Case Story
 Issues in Replicating ANAND Success Case
Story to Agriculture
 Storage & Transportation Technologies
 Indian Centric Challenges & Suggested
Solution Models
 Track & Trace Technologies & GISPL Pilots
 Way Forward

23. 23
Indian Centric Challenges &
Suggested Solution Models
India has it s own typical challenges which
needs to be addressed to exploit it s natural
Agro Climatic & Soil advantages with a
capability to produce 400 crops!
 Erratic Power Supply & Poor Road
Conditions
 Fragmented Farms & Agriculture
 Cooling Facilities & Refrigeration
 Capital & Subsidy Schemes
 MIS & Sensing Technologies

24. 24
Indian Centric Challenges &
Suggested Solution Models
GISPL/AKC have studied the existing Cold
Storages and find that they can be optimized
to consume 40% less Energy thru Micro
Processor based Intelligent Cooling with
some structural changes
GISPL recommends use of Solar Power Plants
to run these Optimized Cold Storages
GISPL has identified Transport Vans with Zero
energy cooling for transportation

25. 25
Agenda
 India s Agricultural Scenario
 Linking Unorganized to Organized – Indian
Success Case Story
 Issues in Replicating ANAND Success Case
Story to Agriculture
 Storage & Transportation Technologies
 Indian Centric Challenges & Suggested
Solution Models
 Track & Trace Technologies & GISPL Pilots
 Way Forward

26. 26
Track & Trace Technologies &
GISPL Pilots
GISPL has done several Pilots including
 Automatic Vehicle Tracking using GPS
 Automatic Vehicle Tracking using GPRS
 RFID for Automatic Stock Identification &
movement from Warehouses
 Chipless RFID for Packaging & automatic
sensing
RFID technologies can further be modified for
Produce specific automatic sensing &
identification

27. 27
Agenda
 India s Agricultural Scenario
 Linking Unorganized to Organized – Indian
Success Case Story
 Issues in Replicating ANAND Success Case
Story to Agriculture
 Storage & Transportation Technologies
 Indian Centric Challenges & Suggested
Solution Models
 Track & Trace Technologies & GISPL Pilots
 Way Forward

28. 28
Way Forward
With individual small farmers quitting
agriculture due to it becoming economically
unviable, GISPL is trying a Hub & Spoke
Model as follows
 Educated Tech Savvy people entering the
arena with Good Farm Management & GAP
in Panchayats surrounding Mandals
 Establish Solar Powered Irrigation Pumps/
Moisture Conservation Methods

29. 29
Way Forward
 Produce High Quality Produce as per the
Agro Climatic/ Soil/ Water support
 Establish Optimized Cold Storages powered
by Solar Plants thereby setting up smaller
capacity plants in the Mandals for Scale Of
Operations & Aggregation
 Forward Link with Retail Chains / Processors
 Use Sensing Technologies for Tracing &
Tracking Real Time
 Manage thru Mobile based Monitoring
Systems

30. 30
Q & A

31. DSK RAO
Director,
Gyantech Information Systems Private Limited (GISPL)
Hyderabad
dskrao@gyantechinfo.com
Cell:9440051847
31
Thank
You