Assessment on postharvest losses of tomato (Lycopersicon esculentem MILL.) In selected districts of east shewa zone of Ethiopia using a commodity system analysis methodology

Abstract

In meeting a country’s economic development in general and fulfilling the need of consumers in particular, boosting the production by itself is not enough unless what has been produced is properly managed. In Ethiopia, significant amount of food is lost along the post-harvest handling chain, though not found recorded and there has not been much emphasis given to understand the real causes of these losses. In view of this, a detailed assessment of postharvest losses of tomato along the supply chain and the associated factors were evaluated in four purposively selected districts of East Shewa Zone of Ethiopia using Commodity System Assessment Methodology from “farm-to-fork”. The objectives were assessing the status of postharvest losses of tomato along the supply chain and the associated factors in the pursuit of recommending appropriate mitigation strategies. Basic information was gathered from a total of 408 sampled chain actors (producers to consumers) and related institutions. The assessment was accompanied by focus group discussion (FGD) with key informants to extract realistic information. The collected data were subjected to computer software programs; SPSS 16.0. The results revealed that a loss of 20.45%, 8.63%, 2.93%, and 7.30% at producer, wholesalers, retailers, and hotel and café level was recorded respectively resulting in a total loss of 39.31% from harvesting to consumer. The loss in the districts ranged from 17.20- 33.30%, significant losses being from Lume district (p<0.01) which might attributed to the absence of stacking of plants in the field together with the market problem. Field, transportation and market display were major points of losses of tomato; significant losses being observed right from field (p<0.01). There was no proper care and handling of the commodity regardless of its high production in the study area. Market fluctuation, climatic problems, perishable nature of the crop, no/poor sorting and mixed handling of the crop found to be major causes. Lack of awareness and technology, carelessness on the loss and its impact, involvement of so many intermediaries in the market chain, and others are major factors, which need improvement. This piece of work recommends that farmers in these districts require proper and extensive training on how to reduce tomato losses especially through introduction of pre-and post-harvest best practices like cultural practices, harvesting, sorting & grading, using proper packaging, transporting and cooling. Awareness creation on the effect of every single cause of loss and minimizing the economic loss is advisable. Market settlement through creating suitable marketing environment so that producers can harvest and supply to market with tomatoes of optimum maturity so that exaggerated price fluctuation and selling offhand are avoided and losses are reduced. The findings clearly showed the existence of high post-harvest loss of tomato in the study districts and hence it is an urgent agenda to device appropriate strategies including provision of tailored training for the different actors in the production and supply chain and creating access to affordable and appropriate technologies.