Potential role of post-harvest management in agribusiness

Abstract

Agriculture plays a key role in deciding the economy of the country and agricultural marketing has become the potential driver of the agricultural sector. Green revolution and succeeding technologies made our farmers to succeed in the production front, but lagging appreciably in terms of price realization owing to their inability to stop post-harvest losses and inaccessibility to efficient and scientific marketing system. Post-harvest management includes storage, packaging, coating, disease management, extended shelf life, maintaining food quality. Foods and other products can be preserved by storage at low temperature, which retards the activities of microorganisms and preserve perishable foods in their natural state. Preservation depends on the storage time required whether short or long-term short and the type of product. A cold storage unit works on two principles: Vapour absorption system (VAS), and Vapour compression system (VCS). Although VAS is a bit costlier, but economical in operation. Food irradiation is another recent food preservation technology to address some of post-harvest losses. Food is exposed to ionizing radiation (i.e. radiowaves, microwaves, UV rays, X-rays, gamma rays etc.). Food irradiation can be applied to specific purposes as quarantine treatment of fruits and vegetables and as a method to ensure hygienic quality of foods. Food processing techniques like grading, sorting and packaging, etc add value and enhances shelf life of food. Agricultural productivity augmentation needs a concurrent development of post-harvest support mechanism and efficient and organized marketing system, which would ensure maximum price rrealization to the farmers.