Cold chain
Topic: Agricultural Marketing, MSP, Buffer Stocks and PDS · NCERT: Beyond NCERT
Meaning
A cold chain is an unbroken, temperature-controlled chain of storage and transport from farm to shop. A typical chain runs: pack-house → pre-cooling → reefer (refrigerated) truck → cold store → ripening chamber → retail. It keeps fruits, vegetables, dairy and fish fresh. It also lets farmers wait for better prices instead of selling in a hurry. A break at any link can spoil the produce.
Example
India set up the National Centre for Cold-chain Development in 2011. It also launched Operation Greens (2018, for tomato, onion and potato; widened to 22 perishables in 2021) and Kisan Rail (2020). Gaps remain. Cold storage is skewed towards potatoes in UP and West Bengal, reefer transport is thin, and there are too few pack-houses and ripening chambers near farms.
Don't confuse with
- Cold storage: this is one link, a warehouse kept at low temperature. A cold chain is the whole connected series of links, including transport.
Related concepts
- Post-harvest losses
- Warehouse
- Warehouse receipt
- Negotiable warehouse receipt
- Electronic negotiable warehouse receipt