India’s agri-physical market for farm fresh vegetables and fruits will need to follow Covid-19 prevention practices like hygiene, social distancing and donning masks. In this regard, sourcing from pack houses in villages will bring in quality standards with quarantine safety vegetables and fruits and prevent overcrowding and wastage of farm produce at physical markets.

According to Jagadeesh Sunkad, thought leader, Agri-tech Start-up Space, pack houses are relevant for Indian agriculture. There is a need for focussed policy directing markets to sell vegetables and fruits that are transported only from pack houses.

“Infrastructure like conveyer belts, sorting, grading units, washing, drying and weighing saves time and provides the much-needed convenience to agri-retail customers at the markets to select the produce. Moreover, all these machines are manufactured indigenously,” he added.

“Pack houses also provide a promising business opportunity for agri-entrepreneurs and require an investment of Rs 40 lakh. Besides generating employment in rural areas, there is considerable scope for Farmer Producer Organisations (FPOs) to set up pack houses close to the farms near villages,” Sunkad told F&B News.

In agri physical markets, price-quality co-relation is not defined. However, it plays an important role in price discovery where the buyer and seller have an opportunity to assess the cost, supply and demand, to negotiate. Going forward, within the next three months, these markets need to improve in terms of cleanliness and general hygiene for the benefit of the farmers and buyers, according to him.

“The prices of farm produce in the markets sourced from pack houses are realistic. This is because fruits and vegetables are cleaned, graded and packed at pack houses before they are transported in trucks to the physical markets thus eliminating the labour charges for sorting them again at markets and passing on the cost to buyers,” said Sunkad.

“The use of mobile apps and e-trading platforms too will automatically lead to sorting and grading of the fresh produce based on quality. Also, Artificial Intelligence powered solutions can track the buyer behaviour. An algorithm is built in to decide consumption patterns to fix the price based on matching demand with supply,” he said.

“In the wake of this pandemic, it will take at least six months for the supply and demand to normalise in markets. Until such time, it is risky for both farmers and sellers to bear the brunt because of cash crunch in the market. But in order to sustain high quality standards at the right price in markets, farm fresh produce should only be sourced directly from pack houses,” Sunkad said.