Production, Harvesting And Handling Of Fresh Foods
Country has made a lot of progress in agriculture since independence in terms of growth in output, yield and area under many crops. It has gone through a green revolution, a white revolution, a yellow revolution and a blue revolution. Today, India is the world's second largest producer of food next to China and has the potential of being the biggest with the food and agricultural sector. India is the largest producer of milk, cashewnuts, coconuts and tea in the world, the second largest producer of wheat, sugar and fish and the third largest producer of tobacco and rice, the second largest producer of fruits and vegetables after Brazil and China respectively.
The present production of fruits and vegetables in India is 47 and 80 million tones respectively. Among fruits, 63% of world production of mangoes, 14% of banana, 8% of pineapple and among vegetables, 12.4% of onion, 6% of potato, 7% of tomato, 13% of cauliflower and 6% of cabbage are produced in India. The per capita availability of food grains has risen in the country from 350 gm in 1951 to about 500 gm per day now despite the increase in population from 350 millions to 1000 millions.
The quality and condition of produce sent to the market and its subsequent selling price are directly affected by the care taken during harvesting and field handling.
The objectives of the grower hence should be:
- to harvest a good quality crop in good condition
- to keep the harvested produce in good condition until it is consumed or sold and
- to dispose off the crop to a buyer or through a market as soon as possible after harvest.
To meet these objectives, success in harvesting and marketing must depend on planning from the earliest stages of production.
How to determine whether a crop is ready for harvest or not? What are the factors to be kept in mind that would help to get an optimal yield? What are the environmental conditions best suited for harvesting? Which harvesting techniques should be employed to minimize the extent of wastage? Finally, what post-harvest technologies should be employed to get maximal output as well as reduce the risk of spoilage? In the following
sub-sections, we will study about all these aspects.