India

The Center of People

Posted on October 24, 2014October 23, 2014 by Sam Kornstein in India Food Waste, Photography, Travel

Via Joost Bonsen, whose Development Ventures Class in the MIT Media Lab was among the best course decisions I made in grad school, a graphic that’s trending on reddit showing the world’s population by longitude and latitude: From the graphic alone, I would have guessed this was in northwest India, but after looking up the coordinates, it turns out the center of people is just over the border in Pakistan: Coincidentally, as a direct result of Joost’s course, I ended up conducting some research on food waste in India right by the border, just 100 miles from the above coordinates in Pakistan. Here’s what it looks like:

India Photography Continued

Posted on February 18, 2012February 17, 2012 by Sam Kornstein in Photography, Travel

Some more shots, from Punjab and Udaipur:

India Photography

Posted on February 17, 2012February 17, 2012 by Sam Kornstein in General, Photography, Travel

Some shots from Agra and Jaipur:

Pune: A (Nearly) Waste-Free City

Posted on January 26, 2012January 3, 2015 by Sam Kornstein in India Food Waste, Research, Technology, Travel

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

Four Problems with India’s Food Supply Systems

Posted on January 24, 2012January 3, 2015 by Sam Kornstein in India Food Waste, Research, Travel

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

India’s Lack of Food Processing

Posted on January 21, 2012January 3, 2015 by Sam Kornstein in India Food Waste, Research, Travel

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

Posted on January 18, 2012January 3, 2015 by Sam Kornstein in India Food Waste, Research, Travel

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

Posted on January 17, 2012January 3, 2015 by Sam Kornstein in India Food Waste, Research, Travel

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

Posted on January 16, 2012January 3, 2015 by Sam Kornstein in India Food Waste, Research, Travel

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

India’s Cold Storage Capacity

Posted on January 14, 2012January 3, 2015 by Sam Kornstein in India Food Waste, Research, Travel

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