Use of boxes as an accessory to harvest vegetables in the Brazilian Federal District

Several types of boxes are being used as accessories to harvest vegetables in Brazil. This adds to the complexity of operations for smallholders, whose family business is to cultivate several species of vegetables simultaneously, while supporting an oppressive workload. To improve the yield and quality of the produced vegetables, a constant concern is to simplify and streamline the procedures, to leverage the business, through the proper use of equipment, supplies and the family working capacity. In this study we made visits to farms and collected quantitative and qualitative information about boxes and other accessories used to harvest by vegetables growers in the Federal District. Some procedures used to monitor the harvest made by the growers were harvest velocity, distance traveled by the laborer, number and type of packages and type of accessory transporter used for harvesting and transportation. Accessories for harvest of vegetables used in this study included a new platform for harvest, buckets, plastic boxes, wheelbarrows and baskets. It is concluded that it is possible to improve harvesting yield and to reduce postharvest losses, while improving the freshness of vegetables up to their marketing, by making use of new minimal handling procedures, using arrays of boxes, and classification procedures, over a low cost movable harvest platform.