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July 9th, 2018

Assessment of production potential and post-harvest losses of fruits and vegetables in northern region of Ethiopia

Published by Agriculture and Food Security,

This study (PDF) in the Agriculture & Food Security journal, assesses the production potential and post-harvest losses of fruits and vegetables at farmer’s field and identifies the technological gaps in the existing production and post-harvest handling techniques, in Northern Ethiopia. Horticultural crops are not widely cultivated in Ethiopia due to small-scale farming systems and poor pre- and post-harvest handling techniques. It can be concluded that the horticulture crop producers in the Northern part of Ethiopia use different cultural practices adopted from innovative technologies and their own tradition cultural practice, and hence they have been increasing the potential for production of fruits and vegetables. However, there are many production constraints during cultivation, harvesting, transportation, marketing and consumption of fruits and vegetables, and hence post-harvest loss was listed as a main challenge to perishable crop producers. Therefore, designing further research on innovative technologies for access supply and consumption of horticultural crops should be required because they are more cash crops than other crops are. In addition, capacity building on post-harvest handling techniques of fruits and vegetables should be promoted. All stakeholders should work in collaboration to facilitate a sustainable production of fruits and vegetables in small-scale farmers with a long-term market access. Besides, involvement and participation of female headed households on production of horticultural crops should be practices to create awareness and sustain the livelihood of the community.

Curated from link.springer.com