Forecasting agricultural production and storage needs for major crops in Telangana: Implications for post-harvest management and crop sustainability

Agricultural infrastructure plays a vital role in agriculture at every single step like for the supply of input, sowing of crops and for the post-harvest management that directly influences the quality and shelf life of agricultural produce. Advancements in plant science, such as the development of genetically improved varieties with extended shelf life, require additional improvements in storage infrastructure to preserve their genetic potential and nutritional value. As a result, Government of India has formulated various kinds of schemes like agricultural marketing infrastructure scheme to improve the capacity of warehouses that has seen a drastic change from 248.73 LMT in 2011 to 671.87 LMT in 2022 with an overall increase of 170.10 per cent . To assess the future storage requirements, ARIMA and CAGR techniques were employed to forecast the warehouse capacity and production of major crops in Telangana for seven years and compared both to find the future requirement of warehouse capacity in Telangana. The projected agricultural production in Telangana continued to rise significantly, reaching 214.02 LMT by 2030 due to improved irrigation facilities, use of improved varieties and disease resistant crop varieties. However, the capacity of warehouses is expected to increase only marginally, from 38.13 LMT in 2024 to 38.85 LMT in 2030. This disparity highlights a growing challenge in storage, as the percentage of production that can be accommodated by warehouses declines steadily from 21.26 per cent in 2024 to 18.15 per cent by 2030. Specifically, by 2030, to accommodate 20 per cent of the total production, a warehouse capacity of 42.80 LMT is needed. If 25 per cent of the production is to be stored, the capacity requirement increases to 53.51 LMT. For storing 30 per cent of the production, a capacity of 64.21 LMT is necessary and if 35 per cent of the production is to be stored, the required warehouse capacity rises to 74.91 LMT. Even though there is an increase in capacity of warehouses and cold storages, still there is a need for storage capacity in future years due to the increase in production of major crops in Telangana.