TL;DR An estimated ₹1.53 lakh crore ($18.3 billion) worth of food is lost due to post-harvest losses, accounting for 2.35% of the National GDP (at current prices for Q1 of 2022-23) as per the NABCONS 2022 study. The worst-affected crops are Guava (15% loss), Tomato (11.6%), Apple & Sapota (9.5%), and Marine Fish (8.8%). The least-lost produce is Milk (0.87%), the result of decades of cold chain investment.  The same crop losses vary across states: paddy losses are at 6.07% in Assam but only 2.87% in Uttarakhand. Sugarcane losses are at 8.99% in Bihar but just 1.23% in Punjab. The data exposes a non-uniform addressable infrastructure gap.

Context

India is the world’s second-largest food producer. It grew 358 million tonnes of foodgrains in 2024-25. Its horticulture output, such as fruits, vegetables, spices, rose from 96.6 million MT in 1991-92 to 370.7 million MT by 2024-25. By almost every measure of production, India is an agricultural success story.

What it is not is a consumption success story. Before a significant fraction of what Indian farmers grow reaches an Indian plate, it is lost, to poor handling at harvest, to inadequate storage, to the absence of refrigeration during transport, to lack of processing capacity, to the sheer distance between a remote farm and the nearest market. The NABCONS study of 2020-22 puts the cost of these losses at ₹1.53 lakh crore, roughly the annual budget of a mid-sized Indian state, lost to spoilage.

Every few years, the Ministry of Food Processing Industries commissions a study to measure these losses. The ministry has conducted three such major exercises: two through ICAR-CIPHET in 2012 and 2015 (reference year 2012-14), and one through NABCONS in 2022 (reference year 2020-22). The available studies are periodic in nature and do not provide year-wise estimates.

In this article, we shall look at how the losses have changed over the period, and also at other important findings from those studies.

Who Compiles This Data?
Data on food loss in India is primarily available through studies commissioned by the Ministry of Food Processing Industries (MoFPI). The Government of India began systematic assessment of post-harvest losses in 1971 through the Panse Committee. Later, MoFPI partnered with ICAR-CIPHET to conduct major studies in 2012 and 2015 assessing harvest and post-harvest losses across 40+ agricultural commodities using field surveys and observations. After a seven-year gap, MoFPI commissioned NABCONS in 2020 to reassess post-harvest losses across agricultural value chains. These reports are key sources for commodity-wise food loss data in India. The available studies are periodic in nature and do not provide year-wise estimates.

Where can I download Clean & Structured Data about Food Losses?

Clean, Standardised, Structured and ready to download data on the crop-wise, stage-wise and study-wise food losses can be downloaded from Dataful.

Key Insights

Guava Loses 15%, Milk Loses Less Than 1% : The Infrastructure Divide

The most revealing pattern in the data is not the state average; it is the gap between the highest-loss and lowest-loss crops. This gap is not random. It maps almost perfectly onto the presence or absence of temperature-controlled infrastructure along the supply chain.

The contrast between guava (14.98%) and milk (0.83%) is not about how perishable the products are; both are highly perishable. The difference is infrastructure. Milk moved through organised dairy collection and chilling systems. Paddy benefited from procurement and storage infrastructure. Tomatoes, fish, and poultry depended on fragmented cold-chain systems and rapid transport, making them more vulnerable to spoilage. In essence, food loss in India is increasingly shaped by infrastructure inequality rather than only climatic or agronomic conditions.

The ICAR-CIPHET studies of 2012 and 2015, followed by the NABCONS 2022 assessment, show a gradual but uneven decline in post-harvest losses. The reduction is most visible in cereals and pulses. Paddy losses declined from 5.19% in 2012 and 5.53% in 2015 to 4.77% in 2022, while wheat losses declined from 5.96% in 2012 to 4.17% in 2022. The report attributes this decline largely to greater use of combine harvesters, better storage facilities, and improvements in post-harvest handling practices. Overall, the trajectory from ICAR-CIPHET 2012 to NABCONS 2022 suggests that India has reduced post-harvest losses in several major commodities, but gains remain uneven across supply chains and commodity groups.

The Geography of Loss: Same Crop, Different States

One of the key insights from the NABCONS study is that food loss is shaped not just by the type of crop itself but also by the ecosystem surrounding it. The same commodity can produce very different outcomes across states.

For example, Paddy losses were highest in Assam at 6.07%, while Uttarakhand recorded the lowest paddy losses at 2.87%, when the National average is at 4.77%. The report attributes lower losses in Uttarakhand and Punjab to increased use of combine harvesters and better post-harvest systems, while losses in Assam were linked to weaker harvesting and storage infrastructure. In the case of Grapes, Karnataka recorded grape losses of 8.02% while Maharashtra recorded lower losses at 6.73%, and the National average stood at 7.15%. The difference was strongly associated with infrastructure investment. Maharashtra benefited from around 160 APEDA-supported pack houses, food-testing laboratories, and export-oriented cold-chain systems concentrated around Nashik and other grape clusters.

These examples show that post-harvest loss rates are increasingly shaped by infrastructure quality in addition to crop biology, and post-harvest loss rates vary substantially for the same commodity depending on the regional supply chain.

A Tale of Two Supply Chains: Same State, Different Crops

The NABCONS study shows that post-harvest losses increasingly depend on the strength of the supply chain rather than agricultural output alone. Within the same state, staples such as paddy and milk consistently recorded lower losses, while perishables, including tomatoes, fish, poultry, and fruits, experienced substantially higher wastage.

For example, in Andhra Pradesh, paddy losses stood at 5.73% and milk losses remained below 1%, supported by procurement networks, storage systems, and organised collection infrastructure. By contrast, tomato losses exceeded 12%, marine fish losses were around 8.5%, and poultry meat losses accounted for 7.4%, reflecting gaps in cold-chain logistics, grading, and rapid transport.

A similar pattern can be seen in Maharashtra. Grape losses add up to 6.73% due to export-oriented pack houses and cold-chain investments, while Mushrooms post-harvest loss stands at 9.2%, Citrus at 8.8%, indicating that more perishable horticulture crops continued to record higher losses where comparable infrastructure was absent.

The broader pattern is clear: commodities linked to mature procurement and logistics systems record lower losses, while perishables dependent on fragmented supply chains remain more vulnerable. The findings suggest that India’s food-loss challenge is increasingly an infrastructure and market-integration problem rather than a production problem alone.

Why Does It Matter?

A guava, or for that matter, any crop, rotting in a field is not only wasted fruit. A crop lost after harvest is income erased before it reaches the market. India’s farm crisis is not only about low prices. It is also about produce never sold.

This is why cold chains matter. Without storage, gluts become crashes and shortages become spikes. Farmers dump tomatoes at ₹2/kg one month; consumers buy them at ₹200/kg the next. The system fails at both ends.

The deeper contradiction is this: India grows enough food, loses millions of tonnes after harvest, and still has millions undernourished. Producing more cannot solve what preserving better can.

Key Numbers

• Post-Harvest Loss at an All-India level, as per NABCONS 2022

  • Top–3: Guava: 15.05%; Tomato: 11.61%; Apple: 9.51%

  • Bottom-3: Milk: 0.87% ; Black Pepper: 1.29%; Cotton Seed: 2.87%

• Loss of Same Crop in Different States

  • Paddy: Assam: 6.07%; Maharashtra: 4.4%; Uttarakhand: 2.87%

  • Tomato: Odisha: 13.2%; Madhya Pradesh: 11.8%; Karnataka: 10%

  • Groundnut: West Bengal: 7.2%; Maharashtra: 6.2%; Rajasthan: 5%

• Loss of Different Crops in Same State

  • Andhra Pradesh: Tomato: 12.3%; Mango: 7.9%; Cashew Nut: 4.8%

  • Maharashtra: Mushroom: 9.2%; Groundnut: 6.2%; Bajra: 4.2%

  • West Bengal: Guava: 15.9%;  Cabbage: 8.7%;  Potato: 5.7%