Lack of Post-harvest Handling Knowledge
Tonnes of vegetables, fruits go to waste annually
Says Bangladesh Agricultural Research Institute scientist
Thousands of tonnes of vegetables and fruits go to waste annually in Bangladesh due to a lack of sufficient technologies and knowledge on post-harvest handling, packaging, storage and transportation, said a Bangladesh Agricultural Research Institute (BARI) scientist yesterday.
Cramming such goods into overloaded vehicles is one reason behind the drop in their freshness, said BARI Chief Scientific Officer Md Rezaul Karim at a dialogue.
“Sometimes, traders pack 600 kilogrammes of a fruit or vegetable in a single package which is very difficult to handle and subsequently causes huge damage,” he said.
The dialogue, “Bridging the Knowledge Divide in Agriculture and Food Security”, was organised by Centre for Development and Competitive Strategies (CDCS) in the capital’s Brac Centre Inn.
Referring to a Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics report, Rezaul showed that post-harvest losses among 12 fruits and vegetables ranged from the lowest 8.1 percent (litchi) to 32.4 percent (jackfruit) in 2010-11.
The second highest loss was in banana (30.8) followed by tomato (27.64), cabbage (24.44) and country bean (24.29). The other crops were mango, orange, pineapple, brinjal, cucumber and cauliflower.
The report shows that the national level loss of jackfruit, banana and tomato were 3,25,673; 2,52,022 and 64,252 tonnes respectively in 2010-11.
Losses of crops are much higher at traders’ level than at farmers’, said Karim, adding that cold storages were almost exclusively used for potato and there were virtually none for other horticulture crops.
He suggested training farmers and traders on marketing fresh and processed food to reduce the extent of the damage.
Dr Wais Kabir, executive chairman of Bangladesh Agricultural Research Council; Noritada Morita, CDCS International Adviser; and Prof Md Mahbubur Rahman, vice chancellor of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman Agricultural University, also spoke.
-With The Daily Star input
