India is the world’s largest mango producer, contributing approximately 22.40 million tonnes in 2023, which represents more than 40% of the total global production. Yet, a review of studies published between 1997 and 2025 indicates the country suffers substantial total post-harvest losses (PHL), estimated at a devastating 25-30% of the annual output. This wastage is compounded across the supply chain, with average stage-wise losses reported as 4-8% during harvesting, 5-8.5% in transportation, 3.5-5.7% in storage, and 5-15% at the final retail stage. This study employs a narrative synthesis approach, consolidating evidence from government reports, publications from various organisations, and peer-reviewed literature to map the distribution of these losses and identify current intervention strategies. The major causes include manual harvesting without proper tools, mechanical injuries, poor packaging, inadequate cold-chain infrastructure, and fragmented marketing systems. The review highlights key interventions to reduce these losses, such as scientific harvesting tools that lower farm-level losses to 3-5%, ventilated plastic crates reducing transit damage to 2-3%, pre-cooling and cold storage at 2-3°C with 90-95% RH, and ethylene-based ripening chambers ensuring uniform quality. Policy recommendations include strengthening Farmer-Producer Organisations (FPOs), increasing investment in packhouses, ripening facilities, and cold-chain infrastructure, implementing quality grading and traceability standards, and leveraging government schemes such as MIDH and PMFME to strengthen packhouses, ripening facilities, and cold-chain infrastructure. Adopting an integrated approach that combines technology, farmer capacity-building, institutional coordination, and infrastructure development is critical not only for reducing mango post-harvest losses but, crucially, for boosting net incomes for small and marginal farmers and ensuring higher quality standards for processors, thereby enhancing India’s market competitiveness.
Reddy et al. (2025) studied this question.