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

Abstract

Fruits and vegetables are highly perishable in nature. A considerable amount of these commodities produced in India is lost due to improper postharvest operations; as a result there is considerable gap between gross production and net availability. Post harvest loss reduction is essential to make available more food from the existing level of production. The losses can be minimized by following simple management practices, such as, sorting and grading, pre-cooling, suitable packaging, proper handling, storage and supply chain management. Therefore, to achieve the target of feeding the growing population as well as meeting the requirements of the processing industry and export trade, only increasing the production and productivity will not be enough. A lot more emphasis needs to be given to post harvest management and maintaining quality of these highly perishable crops.