“The weather is so unpredictable these days — we are at a loss. When we expect rain, there is none, and then suddenly, it pours so heavily that most of our crops wash away,” says Chanda Devi, a smallholder farmer from Bukhari village in the northern state of Bihar, as she points at the rolling clouds in the sky. This unpredictability, coupled with inadequate cold storage facilities often leaves farmers in a precarious situation.  

Bihar, located in the fertile Indo-Gangetic plains, relies heavily on agriculture, with over 75% of its populace engaged in farming and related activities, contributing nearly a quarter of the state's GDP. However, smallholder farmers like Chanda are extremely vulnerable to the adverse impacts of climate change, disrupting the traditional agricultural cycle and threatening their crops and incomes.  

On top of that, without proper storage facilities, even the crops that survive the weather's whims are at risk of wastage, further cutting into farmers' already slim profits. 

According to a study by the Ministry of Food Processing Industries, in 2022 India lost between 5 to 13% of its fruits and vegetables between harvesting and consumption, highlighting the need for a robust cold storage infrastructure at the last mile to minimize these losses. 

“Even if we are able reap the harvest safely, we have no safe place to store the crop. Perishable items like vegetables spoil very quickly, so we are forced to sell all our crops at once at a low price,” Chanda highlights.