FoodTechIndia is reducing food wastage in India through the establishment of an improved supply and cold chain.

• Region: India
• Focus: Reduce food waste
• Start: 2017
• Public-private partnership, involving 5 project partners

FoodTechIndia
FoodTechIndia (FTI) is a public-private initiative combining the strengths of Dutch agro-food companies, knowledge institutes, governmental agencies and their Indian counterparts to reduce food wastage in India through the establishment of an improved supply and cold chain.

Food waste
India’s major challenge is to cope with the growing food consumption demand, increasing food insecurity at a fast pace. Especially considering the country has to secure the provision of food and nutrition to 1,3 billion people now, and 1,6 billion people by 2050. 18% of the country’s fruits & vegetables, worth EUR 1,8 billion, goes to waste annually. One of the key components to address this challenge is reducing agricultural food wastage along the entire value chain: approximately 40% of the country’s fruits and vegetables, worth INR 133 billion (EUR 1,8 billion), goes to waste annually.

In India, fruit & vegetable wastage is mainly due to:
•  Lack of on-farm technology and training;
•  Inefficient methods of harvesting, packaging and transporting;
•  Gaps in the cold chain to maintain freshness and quality of produce;
•  Lack of links to well-organized supply & cold chain: Indian farmers miss opportunities to market their fresh produce and increase their incomes.

Objective
The objective of the project is to reduce food wastage in India through the implementation of an integrated supply and cold chain infrastructure for fruits and vegetables in the state of Karnataka. Furthermore, the project is focused on enabling sustainable inclusive economic growth among local small scale farmers.
Envisioned results

Envisioned results
In order to achieve the objectives, the consortium is focused on realizing the following results:
• Enable protected cultivation by setting up 20 polyhouses.
• Provide farmers with better farming inputs such as high-quality seeds from Rijk Zwaan
• Train the farmers best agronomy practices and reduce the chemical usages.
• Develop train-the-trainer programs, train 10.000 farmers and demonstrate best practices to them.
• Provide crates to pack the fruits and vegetables at farm level to reduce food losses or wastage.
• Build /upgrade collection points /Dc’s near the farmers.
• Operate reefer trucks to retain freshness of the produce by Broekman Logistics.
• Create added value to products by sorting, processing and packaging of the fruits & vegetables.
• Provide farmers direct market linkages through the retail channels of Future Group.
• Support with marketing of the products and utilize new sales channels.

In support of the project, a demonstration polyhouse is built by Future Group at the Foodpark in Tumkur to showcase to the farmers as well as other key stakeholders, the future of greenhouse farming with innovative Dutch technology.

In the media

• RVO: Opportunities & Challenges in the Indian Market: Lessons learned from Dutch Companies in India
• Indyana: 40% of the country’s fruits and vegatables perish due to lack of cold-storage facilities
• Asian Age: Dutch Firm Inks Pact With Future Group
• FD: Nederlandse agrifoodbedrijven vinden hun weg in indiase levensmiddelensector FD (Dutch)

Companies

The consortium initiated and coordinated by Larive contains the following sector experts jointly reducing food wastage:

• Broekman Logistics: Leading provider of logistic services globally with core business in international freight forwarding, warehousing and distribution.
• Future Consumer Limited: Leading retailer with multiple retail formats spread over India. Future Group is engaged in sourcing, branding, marketing and distribution of FMCG, food and processed food products in urban and rural India.
• Rijk Zwaan: One of the top 5 vegetable breeding company with the focus on the development of high-quality vegetable varieties.
• TNO: Independent applied knowledge institute whose expertise will contribute to cold storage and cold logistics solutions
• Larive International: A business development advisory firm specialized in assisting companies in developing and implementing their market entry or expansion strategies in(to) high-growth markets.
• Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Netherlands: The consortium is in close cooperation with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to jointly execute the project successfully.

The strength of the consortium lies in its integral approach (‘chain approach’) toward fruits & vegetables cultivation, harvesting, logistics, storage, cooling, processing, packaging and distribution to the consumer.

• Region: Vietnam
• Focus: Shrimp
• Start: 2019
• Impact cluster, involving 8 project partners

On March 11 April 2019, a new Impact Cluster collaboration, ShrimpTechVietnam, was signed by Marjolijn Sonnema, Director-General Agriculture of the Ministry of Agriculture, Nature and Food Quality and a consortium of Dutch companies who all identified specific opportunities in the shrimp sector in Vietnam.

Vietnamese shrimp sector

Vietnam is the world’s 2^nd largest exporter of shrimp. And according to the Vietnam Association of Seafood Exporters and Producers (Vasep), the Netherlands is the 2^nd largest importer of Vietnamese shrimp within the EU.

About 95% of all Black Tiger shrimps (Monodon) produced in Vietnam are farmed in the Mekong Delta. Additionally, the Mekong Delta is also the farming hub for the Pacific White Shrimp (Vannamei), accounting for 75% of the total Vietnamese production. The total shrimp production in Vietnam is estimated at 650,000 tons a year.

The rapid growth of the shrimp cultivation sector in Vietnam causes a variety of issues, constraining sector development:

• The disease rate increased due to the arrival of improper intensive farming systems (e.g. without water treatment).
• Due to the high demand for shrimp, farmers are struggling to keep up in a sustainable way, which often results in shrimp that are highly contaminated with antibiotics and other chemicals. Next to that, it results in lower quality shrimp (size, flavour, etc.).
• The lower quality of the shrimp also affects the export value of Vietnamese shrimp. Several shipments of Vietnamese shrimp have been denied in different countries (including the Netherlands) due to the presence of high levels of antibiotics.
• The current manner of high intensive shrimp cultivation is also causing considerable damages to the environment, especially in the Mekong Delta. Over the past decades, more than half of Vietnam’s natural mangrove forests have been cleared to accommodate shrimp ponds. Additionally, intensive monocultures, poor farming practices and inappropriate water infrastructures cause water quality problems and bring a high risk of disease as chemicals and antibiotics pollute the environment.

The root of all these problems are the current practices of unsustainable and harmful high-intensive shrimp farming and the ineffective and unsustainable methods of the small- and medium-sized farmers. Shrimp farmers have little to no access to the best sustainable shrimp farming practices. Furthermore, farmers are not aware of the current issues that are underlying in the bigger picture with regards to the market developments and water and soil management (especially in the Mekong Delta).

ShrimpTechVietnam

The consortium “ShrimpTechVietnam” aims to sustainably improve the current shrimp farming practices in the Mekong Delta by conducting research, offering alternatives for antibiotics and wastewater treatment, demonstrating best practices and sustainable solutions, and the training of local farmers. The goal is to enable Vietnamese shrimp farmers to increase their production in a sustainable manner.

Partners

The Impact cluster contains the following sector experts:

• Topsy Baits is the biggest producer of live bait maturation feed for aquaculture industries.
• Shrimpvet is an expert company in diagnostic services, health status of shrimp, grow-out, broodstock and monitoring services.
• TipTopp Aquaculture B.V. develops and offers probiotics as a water treatment solution and an alternative for antibiotics. The TipTopp team also has extensive experience in designing, engineering and maintaining sustainable ecological shrimp cultivation techniques while increasing productivity.
• Sustainable Aquaculture Solutions (SAS) is specialized in both shrimp health and disease prevention management as well as guidance and auditing for ascertaining international quality standards, providing the shrimp producers support on closing the gap with market requirements.
• Nutreco (Skretting) has a local aquafeed production facility in Vietnam and has extensive experience with regards to shrimp nutrition and health.
• Larive Internationaland Openasia will take on the role of general project management (both local and international) and act as the liaison between the parties as well as the Dutch Government.

This project is developed on the request of the Royal Dutch Embassy in Hanoi in close cooperation with RVO, the Dutch Enterprise Agency based in the Hague. The duration of the project is 3 years (2018 – 2020).

For more info, please contact Wouter van Vliet.

 

• Region: Rwanda & Uganda
• Focus: Aquaculture
• Duration: 2017-2019

FoodTechAfrica Rwanda & Uganda

Following FoodTechAfrica activities in Kenya, a RAS fish farm model has been developed that can work in the East African region. This system will also be applied in Rwanda for the purpose of demonstration and testing. Simultaneously, we are looking to get a better understanding of the markets in both countries and the wider region for Dutch technology and knowledge.

Objective
The aim of this project is to assess the market of farmed fish in Uganda and Rwanda and to demonstrate the technical and economic feasibility of the Aquakit in Rwanda. FTA believes a regional approach to aquaculture and implementation of the technology in the region will have a direct positive impact on fish production and food security in the region.

Uganda and Rwanda have been selected as key markets, given their population growth, economic development and urgent need to feed its growing population with locally produced proteins (rather than import from China). Morrover, they also are central countries in the region that can supply fish to neighboring countries, like is already done with captured fish from Lake Victoria traded from Uganda.

Support
This project is co-financed by the government of the Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Partners
Holland Aqua, Viqon, Fishion, Larive International and Lattice Consulting.