Technology on Reducing Post-harvest Losses and Maintaining Quality of Fruits and Vegetables in Bangladesh

Abstract

The post-harvest handlings of fruits and vegetables scenario is quiet unsatisfactory and mostly comprise of traditional techniques practiced by the growers, traders and processors, owing to which considerable deterioration in physical and nutritional qualities of the harvested produced in Bangladesh. It is estimated that the post-harvest loss of fruits and vegetables in the country is about 25-35% (Mia and et-al, 2008). Therefore, improvement of these indigenous practices and development of low cost new technologies through precise research efforts has now become essential to prevent the huge post-harvest losses of fruits and vegetables in view of ever increasing, demand for food and nutrition. In the development plans, considered post-production phenomenon merely as a support programme and the allocated resources for this sub-sector was only negligible amount of the total investment in agriculture sector. Under such situation, reduction of post-harvest losses has become the prime issue to increase the availability of fruits and vegetables at household level. However, the existing status of post-harvest handles including packaging, transportation, storage, processing and preservation of our harvested fruits and vegetables and to identify the loss reduction interventions. The experience in developed countries shows that the post-harvest losses of fruits and vegetables produce could be reduced by using the technology together with appropriate selection, preservation, transportation, packaging, processing and marketing. However, the developing country like Bangladesh suffer much of the post-harvest losses due to a number of factors such as lack of adequate knowledge and information, the unavailability of appropriate technology under funded research and development. However, many countries in this region possess their own indigenous, inherited knowledge in the field of post-harvest technology which perhaps has been neglected in the hurry to modernize. It is high time that the scientists and policy makers come together, discuss the issue of post-harvest technology and developed knowledge to facilitate the exchange of available technology and information between them.