Huge financial loss suffered even by prudent onion farmers of Maharashtra’s Junnar and Shirur districts who had taken the precaution to store their harvest in warehouses during sweeping rains in late September, after nearly half the crop was damaged in makeshift warehouses and sheds, is proof of continuous neglect of Indian agriculture. Substandard storage facilities resulting in high moisture and poor ventilation prevented stored onions from drying, rotting them. Almost every year tomato farmers in Karnataka suffer similar loss after bountiful output, because prices crash and there is not enough storage and/or adequate food processing infrastructure.

According to a NABCONS (NABARD Consultancy Services) study commissioned by the Union ministry of food processing industries, India suffers food loss estimated at Rs.1.53 lakh crore per year (a sum larger than the Centre’s annual outlay for education) from rotted agricultural produce because of deficient post-harvest infrastructure. In particular, 40 percent of the country’s horticulture (fruits and vegetables) produce is wasted annually due to post-harvest neglect.

The root cause of India’s rural majority suffering massive wastage of harvested food and horticulture produce can be traced back to adoption of Soviet-inspired central planning and decree of socialism as the official creed of newly independent India by the Congress party under the leadership of Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru. Instead of according priority to rural development where 80 percent of the population eked out subsistence lives, national savings were deployed to develop heavy industry in massive public sector enterprises (PSEs) managed by business illiterate bureaucrats and clerks. The Centre’s 256 PSEs never earned the surpluses promised for investment in village India.

Meanwhile, Rahul Gandhi, faux socialist jholawalas and big farmers are up in arms against business tycoon Gautam Adani because he has established 18 hi-tech silos for food storage.