Assessment of Postharvest Handling Practices and Problems on Major Crops of South Ari District, South Omo Zone, SNNPR, Ethiopia

Abstract

Currently world is facing serious concern over the equitable, rational and sustainable use of the natural resources that support fair food supply, labour, land, clean water, environment friendly and agricultural inputs because failure in these endeavors leads to starvation and civil war. In order to attain a high nutritional status, improved post-harvest management, reduced post- harvest losses, production of value added products, effective and efficient research programs on the post-harvest sector must be strengthened and promoted. So far, a number of researches have been done on different crops, no more research was done on the postharvest handling practices and problems on major crops especially in South Ari district of South Omo Zone, Southern region of  Ethiopia. Thus, the main objectives of this assessment were to assess and prioritize the major constraints on the postharvest handling of major cereal and pulse crops, coffee and spice, root and tuber crops and fruits and vegetable crops in major growing areas of South Ari district and to generate baseline information for further research work. In this specific zone, poor post harvest handling during storage, transportation and marketing were  identified as the main factors resulting in increased post harvest loss of major. Poor storage system, Poor roads, inappropriate means of transport combined with a bad arrangement of packaging materials and poor marketing structures aggravated the post harvest loss of major crops of the studied areas.  Appropriate packaging materials, proper storage facilities and transportation are required to minimize these losses. Also to reduce the levels of post harvest losses in the area and to rapidly transfer the produce from producers to consumers, a close integration of producers, wholesaler, retailer and consumer becomes necessary. Finally, in order to attain a high nutritional status, improved post-harvest management, reduced post- harvest losses, production of value added products, effective and efficient research programs on the post-harvest sector must be strengthened and promote

Keywords: post harvest losses, Transportation, Marketing, Storage and Consumer