Soaring costs pose big challenge to reducing post-harvest waste

By Hiran H. Senewiratne

The government’s effort to popularize suitable packaging methods for the transport of fruits and vegetables to minimize the post harvest waste have become a major challenge due to the cost of packaging materials/plastic crates and laid back attitudes by the suppliers for new packaging methods , a top Agriculture Ministry official said.

The government’s recent regulation for local suppliers/distributors to utilize plastic crates or other safety packaging material for fruits, vegetable and root crop when transporting from farm to retailers/market, to minimize the post harvest waste/lost from 40 percent to 10 percent has posed a challenge due to certain practical problems, Additional Secretary (Agriculture Development) to the Ministry of Agriculture Dr. D. B. T. Wijeratne said.

The government regulation has not impacted in this direction because suppliers still prefer to use gunny bags instead plastic crates when transporting their produce. This would ultimately impact adversely on local farmers and consumers who have to pay more, he pointed out.

"Due to the implementation issue and suppliers’ attitude towards using gunny bags and other traditional methods instead of plastic crates have posed a challenge to promote this new concept. Further, the cost of crates is also adding to costs," Dr Wijeratne said.

He said that, at present the country ‘s total fruits and vegetables output is more than 1.3 million tones, out of which 35 percent to 40 percent or Rs 10 billion worth of them go waste when transporting from farm to the local retailers/market .

Dr Wijeratne said that this sector has enormous potential for local and foreign investment with the developing of infrastructure by reducing the country’s perishable loss by at least 10 percent. Therefore, the government has already provided 150,000 to 200,000 crates to distributors and other stakeholders, which is below the minimum requirement of 400,000 to 500,000.

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