Plastic crates to cut post harvest losses

Ramani Kangaraarachchi

Around 270,000 tonnes of fruits and vegetables are lost during post harvest operations. The value of this loss is around Rs 9,000 million, per year, the institute of Post Harvest Technology Research Officer Himani Samarakoon said.

Speaking on the “Food crisis, post harvest packaging to rescue and value to the fresh produce supply chain” at the AGM of Institute of Supply and Materials Management at the OPA last week, she said 25 metric tonnes of fruits and vegetables are discarded as garbage everyday from the Manning Market by the Colombo Municipal Council.

Poor post harvest handling during storage, improper packaging and transportation, diseases and inadequate storage facilities are some of the major reasons for such high post harvest losses.

She said in Sri Lanka it has been estimated that post harvest loss of fresh produce vary between 30 to 50 percent of the total production at any point between farmer and consumer in the supply chain, depending on the commodity.

In Sri Lanka, fresh fruits and vegetables are packed mainly in polysacks for transport and this practice leads to serious losses. Of the total post harvest loss 75 percent is due to use of improper packages during handling and transportation.

She said that to overcome this problem, a study was undertaken by the Institute of Post Harvest Technology (IPHT) to identify suitable packages, both from a technical and an economic point of view, for handling and transportation of fresh commodities in Sri Lanka. Among rigid containers evaluated in the study, namely nestable plastic crate, collapsible plastic crate, collapsible steel crate, wooden box, fibreboard box and wax coated fibreboard box, the nestable plastic crate is the most suitable package type for handling and transportation of vegetables and fruits. The study revealed that the post harvest loss could be reduced from 20-30 to 5.8 percent when nestable plastic crates are used.

Samarakoon said to reduce post harvest losses occurring specially during handling and transportation in Sri Lanka, the Institute of Post Harvest Technology (IPHT) with the guidance of the Agriculture Ministry has initiated a project to introduce four types of plastic crates namely small (stackable and nestable), large (stackable and nestable), jumbo (stackable and nestable) to farmers, collectors, transporters, wholesale traders and retailers at a subsidized price (50 percent). 54017 plastic crates have been provided upto date and in addition, 4200 farmers and collectors were trained to create awareness among them on the benefits of using improved packages.