Note: This blog post was originally published on the MIT Public Service Center website. It’s the tenth post in a blog series sharing findings from a research project I’m working on throughout the month of January. January 26, 2012 Paul Artiuch and Sam Kornstein are graduate students at the MIT Sloan School of Management. Throughout the month of January they are in India researching market-oriented approaches to reducing agricultural food waste. They will be sharing their project scope and some of their findings in this blog series. Until now, we’ve spent the majority of our time exploring upstream agricultural supply chains – learning about what happens to food between farms and markets, before it reaches end consumers. Unlike many western countries, Indian
Category: Travel
Four Problems with India’s Food Supply Systems
Note: This blog post was originally published on the MIT Public Service Center website. It’s the ninth post in a blog series sharing findings from a research project I’m working on throughout the month of January. January 24, 2012 Paul Artiuch and Sam Kornstein are graduate students at the MIT Sloan School of Management. Throughout the month of January they are in India researching market-oriented approaches to reducing agricultural food waste. They will be sharing their project scope and some of their findings in this blog series. We’ve spent the past three weeks in India researching agricultural supply chains to see if we could uncover the reasons why an estimated 30-40% of food grown in the country goes to waste. Over this
Smaller Markets in Rajasthan
Note: This blog post was originally published on the MIT Public Service Center website. It’s the eighth post in a blog series sharing findings from a research project I’m working on throughout the month of January. January 23, 2012 Paul Artiuch and Sam Kornstein are graduate students at the MIT Sloan School of Management. Throughout the month of January they are in India researching market-oriented approaches to reducing agricultural food waste. They will be sharing their project scope and some of their findings in this blog series. Earlier this month, we visited Azadpur Mandi, the largest wholesale produce market in Asia. We found that while the marketplace is extraordinarily chaotic, it’s actually quite efficient, and little food goes to waste
India’s Lack of Food Processing
Note: This blog post was originally published on the MIT Public Service Center website. It’s the seventh post in a blog series sharing findings from a research project I’m working on throughout the month of January. January 21, 2012 Paul Artiuch and Sam Kornstein are graduate students at the MIT Sloan School of Management. Throughout the month of January they are in India researching market-oriented approaches to reducing agricultural food waste. They will be sharing their project scope and some of their findings in this blog series. Fresh produce, such as fruits and vegetables, generally spoils quickly. As we’ve previously discussed, cold storage is an effective method of extending shelf life. In most cases, however, the cost of such storage is
India’s Grain Storage Problem
Note: This blog post was originally published on the MIT Public Service Center website. It’s the sixth post in a blog series sharing findings from a research project I’m working on throughout the month of January. January 18, 2012 Paul Artiuch and Sam Kornstein are graduate students at the MIT Sloan School of Management. Throughout the month of January they are researching market-oriented approaches to reducing agricultural food waste in India. They will be sharing their project scope and some of their findings in this blog series. India is one of the largest wheat producers in the world, with the most recent harvest bringing in over 80 million tons of grain. As we’ve mentioned in previous posts, the government buys
The Punjab Potato Party
Note: This blog post was originally published on the MIT Public Service Center website. It’s the fifth post in a blog series sharing findings from a research project I’m working on throughout the month of January. January 16, 2012 Paul Artiuch and Sam Kornstein are graduate students at the MIT Sloan School of Management. Throughout the month of January they are researching market-oriented approaches to reducing agricultural food waste in India. They will be sharing their project scope and some of their findings in this blog series. As we mentioned in our post on cold storage, this year there’s an excess supply of potatoes in India, and prices have plummeted. After spending a day speaking with professors at the Punjab Agricultural University, we
A Look at India’s Agricultural Supply Chains
Note: This blog post was originally published on the MIT Public Service Center website. It’s the fourth post in a blog series sharing findings from a research project I’m working on throughout the month of January. January 15, 2012 Paul Artiuch and Sam Kornstein are graduate students at the MIT Sloan School of Management. Throughout the month of January they are researching market-oriented approaches to reducing agricultural food waste in India. They will be sharing their project scope and some of their findings in this blog series. Over the past week, we’ve learned quite a bit about how food gets from farmers’ fields all over India to the plates of the country’s 1.2 billion people. What struck us most is
Police Corruption in Delhi
There’s quite a bit of security in Delhi. I can’t comment on its effectiveness, but it’s definitely all over the place. When you drive around the city, every couple kilometers or so you’ll come across a police checkpoint where a few officers stand and spot check vehicles for, presumably, anything suspicious. The checks can range from a look in the window to a more thorough search in the trunk or through any bags that are in the car. Once the sun goes down, though, the checkpoints seem to serve a different purpose. I’d always heard that India’s a pretty corrupt place, and got to see it first-hand last night. I was in a car with four other people, and we
India’s Cold Storage Capacity
Note: This blog post was originally published on the MIT Public Service Center website. It’s the third post in a blog series sharing findings from a research project I’m working on throughout the month of January. January 14, 2012 Paul Artiuch and Sam Kornstein are graduate students at the MIT Sloan School of Management. Throughout the month of January they are researching market-oriented approaches to reducing agricultural food waste in India. They will be sharing their project scope and some of their findings in this blog series. Cold storage facilities, essentially refrigerated warehouses, can reduce agricultural price volatility, helping to minimize food waste and increase income for various supply chain stakeholders. The benefits of cold storage are simple: most types of produce
Kotla Market, Delhi
Here’s some video Paul and I shot on a walk through one of the smaller neighborhood markets in Delhi. The produce in this market is purchased daily from Azadpur Mandi.