New Delhi Union Agriculture Ministry has initiated a number of steps towards improving post-harvest management practices including cleaning and grading. Few of them are mentioned below.
(i) Promotion of cleaning, sorting and grading of foodgrains at producer’s level as per the grade standards formulated and notified after consultations with stakeholders including States and through provision of subsidy for creation/strengthening of post-harvest infrastructure including storage and other post-harvest infrastructure and capacity building under the Integrated Scheme for Agriculture Marketing (ISAM),
(ii) The Ministry also advocates reforms in agricultural marketing sector so that private sector is encouraged to invest in post-harvest infrastructure nearer to farmers’ field;
(iii) The Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) and State Agricultural Universities have also developed a number of post-harvest equipment and technologies which help in checking post-harvest losses. They also organize relevant trainings.
This information was given yesterday by Minister of State for Agriculture and Food Processing Industries, Dr. Sanjeev Kumar Balyan in a written reply to Rajya Sabha questions.