Agri-Warehousing: Innovations And Technologies For The Future

In the past few decades, India has made big strides from being the importer of food grains to one of its leading exporters.

- Sandeep Sabharwal

As agricultural production has increased owing to the introduction of modern high yielding varieties and the adoption of more scientific and efficient farming practices, the demand for storage has also increased to the manifold. This has contributed to the evolution of agri-warehousing in the country which has come a long way in the last decade from the ancient granaries and ‘godowns’, to a modern, scientific state-of-the-art temperature controlled storage and highly specialised function.

While the basic function to store food grains remains the same, the methodology and technologies have seen significant advancement in the last few years. The large-scale and technologically advanced warehouses with modernised silo storage today probably has very little in common with the traditional stone structure with raised flooring that passed as storage.

Agri-warehousing industry has witnessed innovation in every aspect from infrastructure design to storage methods and processes with embracement of scientific and technological know-how. Along with the creation of additional infrastructure, the focus should now be on the adoption of innovative solutions in space management, logistical efficiency and the safety of stored goods.

Agri-warehousing in India is fast catching up in the adoption of scientific facilities management, storage and inventory management practices, and technologically advanced equipment. Below are some of the must have scientific technologies in today’s modern warehouses, the adoption of any or all of which will result in significant improvements in operational efficiency, space utilisation and also significant cost savings:

Warehouse Management Systems (WMS)