Fresh produce right at consumers’ doorstep

With large parts of these cities designated as containment zones and movement, almost prohibited, a well-oiled supply chain of food and essentials that reaches people’s doorsteps becomes even more critical.

Even as the count of Covid-19 cases in the Tamil Nadu surged to 911, an initiative started by the state barely four months ago has played an important part in ensuring that the supply of vegetables to cities such as Chennai and Coimbatore, continues without a hitch during the national lockdown.

Vendors unloading turmeric for sale at Koyambedu vegetable market on the occasion of Pongal festival in Chennai on Friday. (PTI)

With large parts of these cities designated as containment zones and movement, almost prohibited, a well-oiled supply chain of food and essentials that reaches people’s doorsteps becomes even more critical.

Four months ago, Tamil Nadu handed over a large part of the management of fruit and vegetable supply chain to farmer producer companies (FPCs). FPCs are for-profit cooperatives that can be formed with 10 or more farmers as shareholders. Their activities can range from production and procurement to marketing, even export. Such cooperatives now run nearly 10 primary processing centres (PPCs) in the big horticultural regions such as Krishnagiri and Dharmapuri.

According to Gagandeep Singh Bedi, the agricultural secretary of Tamil Nadu and the agriculture production commissioner, nearly 5-10 % of Chennai’s vegetable supplies are being door-delivered thanks to the public private partnership initiative with these FPCs.

The state’s horticulture department has also started an online e-commerce platform which has resulted in up to 1000 door deliveries a day — including packages made by the FPCs — in Chennai alone, Bedi, a 1993 batch IAS officer, said.

It was an agriculture policy reform initiated by Bedi in 2018 that helped kick-start the farm-to-fork linkage. It took a couple of years for the infrastructure to get ready. Once the tenders were put out, the Rs 400 crore earmarked under this Supply Chain Management Scheme was used to set up warehouses and cold storage units for the primary processing centres in 10 horticulture-heavy districts like Krishnagiri, Theni, Dharmapuri and Nilgiris that were identified. Though farmers’ cooperatives are not new in the state, it was the first-of-its-kind model where such cooperatives were allowed to run the PPC , cutting out the middleman.

“We hoped that by allowing farmers themselves to run the entire chain of distribution—from processing to sales—not only would they get a fair price for their produce, but this would also lso ensure the availability of fresh vegetables without frequent price shock for consumers,” says Bedi. The ten PPCs, warehouses and cold chains started functioning in January 2020.

The move has clearly paid off, said Vimal Arockiaraj Vincent who runs Ahimsa Organics, an FPC that manages the PPC in Krishnagiri.

Vincent, a 41-year-old aeronautical engineer chucked up a lucrative job with a large aerospace firm in Canada and sold off his dream car, a Mustang, to try his hand at a farm enterprise back home in Kancheepuram district in 2010. Ahimsa Organics has a network of 12,000 vegetable farmers who cultivate close to 60,000 acres. Despite operating with only a third of its usual employees on account of the lockdown, Ahimsa manages door delivery of nearly 30 tonnes of vegetables directly to people in Chennai. The five kilo Ahimsa packs cost Rs 250—and is good to last a family of four for a week.

Vincent could easily take it up to 100 tonnes with a bit of credit and funding from the government. On April 7, the government announced a loan of Rs 10 lakh to all FPCs to allow them to procure more vegetables. The state has temporarily scrapped the fee farmers pay to use services such as warehouses and cold storages.

“At a time when consumers tend to make panic purchases and hoard food, the shortage of essentials such as vegetables can create chaos. Tamil Nadu’s response has been proactive on this front,” says the southern region sales head of one of India’s biggest consumer product firms who did not wish to be identified.

For parts of the state where the FPC’s produce hasn’t reached as yet, the state has been supplying vegetables using its own supply networks. Close to 4000 mobile vegetable trucks operate in Chennai , and the aim is to add 500 more each day of the lockdown, Bedi said. Several municipalities in smaller towns too are also door delivering pre-packed 3 kg packs of assorted vegetables for Rs 100.