Originally reported and written in February 2023, this story has been republished as part of our archival content.

While India is the second largest producer of fruits and vegetables in the world, more than 40 percent of the produce is wasted because of a fragmented and unorganised supply chain. It costs the country about $14 billion every year. Meanwhile, cultivators continue to be pushed into poverty.

To address this huge problem, Aurangabad-based chemical engineer Nidhi Pant launched S4S (Science For Society) Technologies — a food processing platform to integrate a chain wherein farmers extract the maximum output of their produce which is otherwise sold at throwaway prices or left in the farm to rot.

“If you go to the farmgate, you will find the farmers not getting a fair price for their produce. At times, the cost of harvesting is greater than the output. They leave the produce without even harvesting it. This problem is very big. I have seen it in Mumbai mandi (market) and also in my village,” the 30-year-old, who hails from Rudraprayag district of Uttarakhand, tells The Better India.

“It is such a big paradox that at one end, this produce is being wasted, and on the other, farmers are in poverty as they are unable to tap distant markets,” she adds.

In 2013, Nidhi launched the........

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