Pragya Nehru

CII’s Food & Agriculture CoE

Director – CII’s Food & Agriculture Centre of Excellence

Pragya Nehru with an advanced degree in Food Processing and Management with over 14 years’ experience in evidence-based calls for policy change and advisory, enabling private investment and Project Management across food and Agri logistics sector.

Pragya leads the post-harvest - logistics and Animal Agriculture vertical under CII-FACE and her work includes Enabling evidence-based calls for change in public lending and private investment policy across Agro and food supply chain with major emphasis on cold supply chain for perishables.

Pragya has led many projects across the sector leading to policy changes and projects implementation across food logistics including subsectors like dairy, fisheries, food processing, F&V, Agro commodities, and frozen food segment. Infrastructure assessment and creating strategic market linkage with appropriate logistics network is a key focus area of her work.

Pragya works closely with Ministry of Food Processing, Ministry of agriculture, Department of Fisheries, and other associated institutions along with private sector. Did Food Professional Course on “Food Safety and Quality Management System” from IIT Kharagpur acquiring knowledge of Total Quality Management System, ISO 22000, HACCP and quality systems and Cold Chain Management training from CEMAFROID, PARIS.

All Sessions by Pragya Nehru

DAY 01 | Thursday February 2, 2023

11:30 - 12:30

Executive Dialogue 1 – Ensuring a Sustainable Cold Chain by India@100 Powered by Danfoss Industries

New Delhi

Session Brief: India has emerged as one of the world's second-largest producers of fruits and vegetables. However, with India's growing population, there will be an additional 430 million mouths to feed, hinting that food security and hunger to remain the most pressing concerns in the next few decades. Further, the sector continues to experience significant post-harvest losses, which are a cause of rising distress for India's small-holder farmers. The Indian government recognises the need for developing post-harvest infrastructure and has formulated several schemes, such as the Mission for Integrated Development of Horticulture (MIDH), Mega Food Park Scheme, and Agriculture Infrastructure Fund (AIF). Recent interventions, such as the formation of the Doubling Farmers Income (DFI) committee and the Gati-Shakti Master Plan, will improve farmers' income, increase employment opportunities and strengthen market linkages. This journey of developing a sustainable cold chain will help the country decarbonise its energy system and increase its economy and meet the Net Zero ambitions by mid-century. However, some questions still need answers:

What hinders the on-ground implementation of government programs for strengthening cold-chain infrastructure? How can these be resolved?
Is it difficult to develop a sustainable cold chain in India, employing energy-efficient technologies?