How to avoid distress selling right after harvest when prices are low?

Distress selling happens when you need cash and everyone is selling at once, so prices are at their lowest. The way out is to separate your cash need from your selling decision. The main tool is a warehouse receipt loan: store your produce in a WDRA registered warehouse, get an e-NWR, and borrow against it to meet your immediate cash needs, then sell later when prices recover and repay the loan. This way you are not forced to dump the crop at the bottom. Other options are to stagger your sales over weeks rather than selling everything in one go, to store on-farm what you safely can if it holds quality, and to sell through an FPO that can aggregate and negotiate better than a single small farmer. Compare expected later prices against the storage rent and loan interest, since holding only pays if the gain beats the cost. For perishables that lose quality fast, holding is risky, so for those, grading and direct or FPO marketing to get a better immediate price may be the better route. Verify warehouse registration, loan terms and any interest subvention with your bank and the WDRA portal.