Research Project: Four Problems with India’s Food Supply Systems

This post is the ninth in a series sharing findings from a research project Sam Kornstein and Paul Artiuch are working on throughout the month of January. Paul Artiuch and Samuel 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.

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By Samuel Kornstein and Paul Artiuch

January 24, 2012

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 time we’ve had a chance to speak with many stakeholders to gain their perspectives on the issue. Not surprisingly, the landscape that’s emerged is quite complex. At the risk of oversimplifying some of India’s largest agricultural challenges, we’ve outlined four of the main problem areas.

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