| From
the mid-term appraisal of the Eleventh Five Year plan
onwards, central government ministries have been telling
us that post-harvest losses in India are high, particularly
for fruits and vegetables. The amount of waste often
quoted is up to 40% for vegetables and fruits, and has
been held up as the most compelling reason to permit
a flood of investment in the new sector of agricultural
logistics, to allow the creation of huge food processing
zones, and to link all these to retail food structures
in urban markets. The urban orientation of such an approach
ignores the integrated and organic farming approach,
as it does the evidence that sophistication in food
processing has not in the West prevented food loss or
waste.
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