THE FARM TO FORK CRISIS

An average Indian consumer may not have faced any shortage of essential food items during the 21-day lockdown but a supply chain crisis is brewing in the Indian agriculture sector. Harvested food grains such as wheat have been stuck in fields in several states, and food grain aggregators, processors and branded processed food sellers are all facing problems in sourcing fresh stock.

The fact that even FMCG giant ITC is not immune to the disruption caused across the agricultural value chain, despite various agri-sector activities exempted from the lockdown, is an indicator of the seriousness of the problem. “Given the constraints of limited availability of transport and workforce, the end-to-end flow is still not seamless. Generally, the processing units – wheat mills, for example – run on low stocks in March because the supplies transit from one crop season to the next,” says