تقدير خسائر فاقد ما بعد الحصاد لبعض محاصيل الخضار في الأردن

Abstract EN

This study was conducted to estimate the post-harvest losses for a group of vegetable crops including cucumber, sweet pepper, bean, and tomato, to identify the causes of these losses, and to investigate the existing post-harvest systems for vegetable crops used in Jordan.

The losses were investigated at three levels; namely: farmer, wholesaler and retail levels.

The data were analyzed using Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS).

The highest percentages of losses were identified at retail level; the losses were 14%, 11.4%, 13.3% and 12.5% for tomato, cucumber, sweet pepper and bean, respectively.

The results of this study revealed that relatively high percentages of losses were detected at all levels; the total losses were 25%, 23.9%, 23% and 22% for cucumber, sweet pepper, bean and tomato, respectively.

The results of this study showed that the losses in studied vegetable crops were due to the lack of farmers' knowledge about post-harvest technologies, such as pre-cooling, washing, grading, sorting and cooled storage.

This study recommends developing extension programs to train farmers on the use of post-harvest technologies in order to meet the international criteria and standards in terms of desirable cultivars, quality, fruit size and suitable date of production.

Moreover, the current study recommends facilitating the establishment of private marketing companies responsible for post-harvest processes by direct contract with farmers to market their productions.