Assessment of Fruits and Vegetables Supply Channel to Ensure Safe Food Provision

This study examines the actual scenario of the abusive use of harmful chemicals in the agricultural food supply chain, identifies the underlying causes, and recommends sustainable solution. Conducting a survey with fruits and vegetables in production and marketing locations, the study reveals that fruits are vulnerable in terms of application of unconscious and overuse of harmful chemicals at both production and marketing stages while the vegetables are mostly vulnerable at the production stage. Both the producers and the marketers do not have adequate knowledge on the use and handling of the risky chemicals. The suppliers take the opportunity to exploit the gap in commodity information between suppliers and demanders. Building awareness, making safety information available to the consumers are demand side and training on proper use and handling of the harmful chemicals, mass campaign on organic method of production, strengthening monitoring, supervision and implementation measures are supply side corrective measures.