G. B. Pant Social Science Institute, Allahabad, Uttar Pradesh.
The private sector has come up in a big way through cold stores (CS) in reducing the intermediation and thus improving the efficiency of value chins in the potato sub-sector. The present study on potato value chain conducted in collaboration with the IFPRI, has revealed that the number of private-owned CS has increased significantly (by 70%) during the past two decades. Nearly 80 per cent of the potatoes pass through CS for marketing, which is more than double a decade ago. About 75 per cent farmers use CS as the interface between them and the buyers. The CS has been able to replace the regulated wholesale markets to a large extent as the venue for the exchanges in the case of potato. These CS primarily meant for potato storage, have over the years emerged as providers of other services like arranging access to seeds, providing credit services, intermediation services, transport as well as sorting/grading services. Thus, CS have emerged as the key players in the potato supply chain. The analysis presented in this paper might be helpful in policy formulations.
