Factors affecting adoption of post-harvest management practices by vegetable growers

The post-harvest losses accrue not only to the economic depreciation of the vegetables but also generate a quantum of waste which further leads to various environmental hazards. Proper post-harvest handling is important in maintaining quality and insuring safety of the vegetables while being brought to the consumer. Post-harvest losses in vegetables can be attributed to poor harvesting method, rough handling, improper packaging and poor transport conditions. In the present study, factors affecting the adoption of post-harvest management practices were studied for major vegetables grown in the Punjab state.The study was conducted in vegetable growing clusters namely; Baba Bakala Sahib, Malerkotla and Nakodar and vegetables selected were potato, pea, tomato, okra and cauliflower. Snowball sampling technique was employed for selection of respondents from every cluster to get respondents for all selected vegetables. This technique was used to select 80 farmers from three clusters, making up a total of 240 farmers. Major factors affecting adoption of post-harvest management practices by vegetable growers were inadequate storage and infrastructural facilities and high cost involved in following recommended practices. It was suggested that there is need to popularize field level trainings and low cost storage technologies, so that post-harvest losses could be minimized.