What are the main constraints in transport and marketing of agriculture produce in India?
Permaculture is a system of farming that aims to create a sustainable and self sufficient ecosystem by integrating plants, animals and human beings. It is a holistic approach that considers the farm as an ecosystem and tries to minimize external inputs. The main objective of permaculture is to creatRead more
Permaculture is a system of farming that aims to create a sustainable and self sufficient ecosystem by integrating plants, animals and human beings. It is a holistic approach that considers the farm as an ecosystem and tries to minimize external inputs. The main objective of permaculture is to create a stable and productive system that can sustain itself over time.
Conventional chemical farming also known as modern or intensive farming, is a system of farming that uses synthetic fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides and irrigation to increase crop production.
Differences between Permaculture and Conventional chemical farming –
- Permaculture farming avoids synthetic chemicals using natural methods and organic inputs whereas Conventional chemical farming relies heavily on synthetic fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides and fungicides, differing fundamentally.
- Permaculture farming promotes biodiversity, integrating diverse crops, trees, animals and microorganisms whereas Conventional chemical farming focuses on monocultures, specializing in single, high yielding crop varieties, lacking diversity.
- Permaculture farming conserves water through rainwater harvesting, mulching and drip irrigation whereas Conventional chemical farming relies on intensive irrigation systems, wasting water and depleting groundwater resources.
- Permaculture farming enhances soil health through organic amendments, composting and minimal tillage whereas Conventional chemical farming degrades soil fertility with synthetic fertilizers, intensive tillage and monocultures.
- Permaculture farming minimizes environmental impact through sustainable practices, conserving biodiversity and reducing pollution whereas Conventional chemical farming contributes to soil erosion, water pollution, climate change and biodiversity loss.
- Permaculture farming promotes diverse, heirloom and native crop varieties, prioritizing nutrition and ecosystem balance whereas Conventional chemical farming focuses on high yielding, genetically modified (GM) and hybrid crops.
- Permaculture farming adopts a holistic, regenerative and adaptive approach, mimicking nature whereas Conventional chemical farming follows a reductionist, mechanized and yield driven approach, prioritizing efficiency and profit over sustainability.
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There are the following technical constraints in India facing the transportation and marketing of agriculture produce: 1. Inadequate Infrastructure: This includes less rural road network and bad rail connectivity that blocks smooth movement from farms to the markets. Bad quality of roads increases tRead more
There are the following technical constraints in India facing the transportation and marketing of agriculture produce:
1. Inadequate Infrastructure: This includes less rural road network and bad rail connectivity that blocks smooth movement from farms to the markets. Bad quality of roads increases time of travel and increases cost mainly in far-flung areas.
2. Post-Harvest Storage and Cold Chain Inadequacies: The absence of cold storage and warehousing facilities results in very high spoilage, especially for perishables. Low quality preservation at the transportation stage impacts the market value.
3. Fragmented Supply Chains: Intermediaries increase the length of supply chains, resulting in inefficiencies and higher costs. More intermediaries in a chain generally reduce the income returned to farmers and increases prices paid by consumers.
This includes lower access to direct markets. Farmers largely depend on traditional mandis regulated under APMC (Agricultural Produce Market Committee), which denies them a direct entrance to bigger, competitive markets.
5. Transport costs: This has made transportation cost high due to little availability of modern transportation networks and the heavily relying on the small transporters.
6. Quality Control Issues: Since quality grading and testing are not well developed, this affects price and market because consumers are not sure of the quality of produce they are buying.
7. Digital and Information Gaps: Not much use of digital tools in discovering real-time prices, weather forecasts, and demand analytics limits the farmers’ capability to make decisions in advance, which further affects their marketing strategies.
All these technical challenges require infrastructure investment, modernization of supply chains, and policy reforms to raise efficiency and expand farmers’ access to markets.
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