Post Harvest Handling of Vegetables

Vegetable produce plays a significant role in human nutrition by supplying vitamins, minerals, dietary fibre and anti-oxidants to the diet. The quality and safety of vegetable produce reaching the consumer depends upon pre-harvest factors as well as post-harvest management practices throughout the chain, from the field to the consumer. There are some changes in vegetables after harvesting and mostly these are undesirable from consumer point of view. Post harvest changes in fresh vegetable produce cannot be stopped but these can be slow down within certain limits. The most common cause of post harvest losses includes rough handling, inadequate cooling and temperature maintenance, physical injuries, shriveling, pest damage, physiological disorders, growth and development after harvest, contamination with pathogenic bacteria, pesticides and chemical residues etc. The lack of sorting to eliminate defect before storage, the use of inadequate packaging materials, lack of know-how, poor management and market dysfunction add to the problem. Therefore it is necessary to reduce these losses by adopting the post harvest techniques, which ultimately improve the shelf life of produce. The development of post harvest handling techniques and its use needs an inter-disciplinary and multidimensional approach which must include political will, scientific creativity, technological innovations, commercial entrepreneurship and institutions capable of interdisciplinary R & D, all of which must respond in an integrated manner to the developmental needs.