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To deal with sharp volatility in retail costs of tomato, the Centre has offered funds to twenty-eight innovators beneath a ‘Tomato Grand Problem’ hackathon for bettering provide chain in addition to processing ranges. The federal government will now facilitate these innovators to scale up their enterprise by connecting them to buyers and corporates.
Shopper Affairs Secretary Nidhi Khare on Friday mentioned the ‘Tomato Grand Problem’ (TGC) hackathon was launched in June final 12 months to ask modern concepts at numerous ranges of the tomato worth chain to make sure its availability to shoppers at reasonably priced costs and assist tomato farmers get worth for the produce.
The TGC was formulated by the Division of Shopper Affairs in collaboration with Ministry of Schooling (Innovation Cell).
“There’s a excessive volatility in tomato costs. Charges improve sharply due to extreme rains, warmth spells and pest assaults,” Khare mentioned, including that there are a minimum of 2-3 events in a 12 months of sudden value hike as a lot as 100 per cent.
She identified that charges someday fall drastically, affecting farmers’ revenue.
Khare careworn that there’s a have to strengthen provide chain, cut back pre in addition to post-harvest losses and increase processing degree to convey stability in costs for the advantage of each shoppers and farmers.
India produces 20 million tonne of tomato yearly.
“We obtained 1,376 concepts from innovators and out of that 423 have been shortlisted within the first stage and at last 28 concepts have been funded,” Khare mentioned.
These 28 innovators have been offered funding for prototype improvement and mentorship.
These concepts have been sought beneath two categories– (i) college students, analysis students and school members and (ii) business people, Indian startups, Micro, Small & Medium Enterprises (MSMEs), Restricted Legal responsibility Partnership (LLPs), professionals.
These concepts have been examined and virtually all of them have established startups. They are going to be educated the way to pitch their novel concepts earlier than buyers and massive corporates.
Requested about the way in which ahead, Khare mentioned the division will now hand maintain these startups and assist them meet buyers in addition to different corporates in order that they will scale up their companies.
The secretary mentioned the inspiration to handle value volatility in tomato got here from the success the nation has achieved in supplying milk, which can be a perishable merchandise.
Khare talked about a few of the modern concepts together with making wine from tomato.
“We’ve got obtained good concepts. We are going to assist them scale as much as tide over the issue of value volatility,” she mentioned.
In keeping with an official assertion, the initiatives underwent periodic monitoring, brief visits, and critiques by TGC Analysis Committee of AICTE and the division.
A number of rounds of analysis by panel of specialists culminated in closing evaluations on October 14-15, 2024, the place initiatives have been judged on their relevance, scalability, and innovation.
The TGC has created a big influence, resulting in many IP in means of submitting, together with 14 patents, 4 design registrations/ trademark and 10 publications.
The result of this hackathon contains, “the event of modern packaging and transportation options to reinforce shelf life and decrease post-harvest losses; creation of processed merchandise that reach usability, decreasing wastage and guaranteeing year-round availability”.
Tomato is produced in virtually all states in India, although in various portions.
Most manufacturing is in Southern and Western areas of India, contributing almost 60 per cent to all-India manufacturing. These areas being surplus states, feed different markets relying on manufacturing seasons.
The manufacturing seasons are additionally totally different throughout areas.
The height harvesting season occurred in December to February. The intervals throughout July-August and October-November are the lean manufacturing months of tomato. July coinciding with monsoon season, provides to additional challenges associated to distribution and elevated transit losses including to cost rise.
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