Present status of post harvest practices for fruits and vegetables in North Eastern Hill region

This paper deals with prevalent post harvest practices being followed in North Eastern Hill Region, causes of post harvest losses and recommendations to control them. Due to fayourable climatic conditions wide variety of fruits and vegetables are beign cultivated in this region, but harvesting and post harvest operations are performed manually without use of recommended scientific measures resulting in higher post harvest losses. The total production of fruits and vegetables in this region is about 1.60 and 2.40 m-tonnes from cultivated area of 0.22 and 0.21 m-ha respectively. Banana, pineapple and citrus are major fruit crops in this region and contribute about 74.32% in area and 79.64% in production of fruit cultivation, respectively. Among the vegetables, potato, cabbage, cauliflower and brinjal cover nearly 85.30% of the area under vegetable cultivation and 94.13% of vegetable production in this region. Although area and production of fruits and vegetables are increasing at fast pace, the post harvest losses are of great concern in this region. These losses occur mainly due to improper cultivation practices, in adequate transportation network, lack of cold storage, ware housing facilities and processing units.