Articles
Status of postharvest handling of fresh produces in Nepal and interventions to minimize the losses
Article number
1336_4
Pages
23 – 30
Language
English
Abstract
Nepal enjoys tropical, sub-tropical and temperate agro-ecologies in narrow span resulting in cultivation of more than 50 vegetables and 21 fruit species in different seasons of a year.
Significance of postharvest management of fresh produces has increased in the recent decades due to development of new commercial hubs in interior parts, long distance transport to the urban areas, rapid urbanization, increasing purchasing power and change in food habits.
Though the country has not gone through the systematic postharvest loss assessment, 15-30 and 20-35% losses after harvest is estimated for vegetables and fruits, respectively.
Nepal has been paying due attention on agriculture commercialization and value chain approach.
However, the postharvest management aspect is often neglected.
This paper analyses the existing postharvest handling practices in different marketing channels operating for fresh produces.
The low level of knowledge and skills on postharvest operations among all supply chain actors ensue high physical and physiological losses and higher transportation cost resulting deteriorated quality of the produces resulting about four-folds consumer price than that of farm-gate price.
Against this backdrop, awareness on benefit realization of postharvest loss reduction, enhancement of low-cost technologies adoption, interventions on newly emerged marketing system (e-commerce and superstores), issues of food safety, promotion of value chain thinking among the actors, and strengthening the institutional capacities have been suggested for the short-term and prioritized interventions with policy instruments are recommended upon execution of nation-wide systematic postharvest loss assessment of fresh produces.
Significance of postharvest management of fresh produces has increased in the recent decades due to development of new commercial hubs in interior parts, long distance transport to the urban areas, rapid urbanization, increasing purchasing power and change in food habits.
Though the country has not gone through the systematic postharvest loss assessment, 15-30 and 20-35% losses after harvest is estimated for vegetables and fruits, respectively.
Nepal has been paying due attention on agriculture commercialization and value chain approach.
However, the postharvest management aspect is often neglected.
This paper analyses the existing postharvest handling practices in different marketing channels operating for fresh produces.
The low level of knowledge and skills on postharvest operations among all supply chain actors ensue high physical and physiological losses and higher transportation cost resulting deteriorated quality of the produces resulting about four-folds consumer price than that of farm-gate price.
Against this backdrop, awareness on benefit realization of postharvest loss reduction, enhancement of low-cost technologies adoption, interventions on newly emerged marketing system (e-commerce and superstores), issues of food safety, promotion of value chain thinking among the actors, and strengthening the institutional capacities have been suggested for the short-term and prioritized interventions with policy instruments are recommended upon execution of nation-wide systematic postharvest loss assessment of fresh produces.
Authors
P.P. Khatiwada, K.C.H. Bahadur
Keywords
fruit, marketing, policy interventions, postharvest loss, vegetables
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