Farm to Fiasco: How ₹1.5 Lakh Crore Slips Away—And How MSP Can Stop It

India loses more than ₹1.5 lakh crore of farm produce—primarily vegetables and fruits—each year to wastage, poor storage, and inefficient supply chains. As a significant food producer, such losses erode farmers' incomes, national food security, and efforts towards affordable nutrition for everyone.

 

What's Rotting Away?

Fruits and Vegetables: Led by the list, losses total around ₹57,000 crore annually. The large culprits: bananas (₹5,777 crore), mangoes (₹10,581 crore), citrus fruits (₹4,347 crore), onions (₹5,156 crore), and tomatoes (₹5,921 crore).

 

Staple Crops: Even the total of rice, wheat, maize, pulses, and oilseeds together loses more than ₹44,000 crore through wastage.

 

Why Extend MSP? The Farmer's Plight

The Minimum Support Price (MSP) now largely ensures remunerative returns to staple foodgrain farmers—leaving most vegetables and fruits outside its protective umbrella. Prices plunge during surpluses and post-harvest wastage mounts, and orchardists and vegetable farmers have to suffer distress sales and mounting wastage.

 

Raising MSP of perishables would:

 

Stabilize vegetable and fruit growers' income totaling millions.

 

Encourage better production practices and investment in farm infrastructure.

 

Increase nutrition and decrease hunger by offering fruits and vegetables as low-cost and available choices.

 

Minimize national food loss and improve food security.

 

Recent Announcements & Policy Actions

 

MSP Hiked for 14 Kharif Crops (2025-26): The Cabinet also cleared additional MSPs, with increase of up to 63% return on cost for nigerseed, cotton, and ragi and sharp increase for bajra—worth over ₹2 lakh crore of support. But fruits and most veggies are still out of MSP.

 

Government Schemes: Mega food parks, cold storages, and processing clusters are being invested in under schemes like PMKSY and the Agriculture Infrastructure Fund to minimize wastage post-harvest.

 

Sector Voices: Increasing pressure from farmer groups and specialists call for bringing high-loss perishables under MSP, observing much of India's nutrition is being wasted due to imperfections in market protection of fruits and vegetables.

 

Key Highlights

 

₹1.5 lakh crore worth of farm produce lost annually due to post-harvest wastage—half of this is fruits and vegetables.

 

MSP increase encourages 14 basic crops but continues to expose perishables to market collapses and food loss.

 

Enormous governmental attempts at cold storage and processing are intended to stem losses but are not a substitute for MSP protection per se. They feel that the inclusion of perishables in MSP is the need of the hour to safeguard rural incomes and food security. 

 

Source: Hindustan Times, The Hindu Business Line