Fruit post-harvest

EDITORIAL

Achieving this goal is realized with adequate collection and maintenance of this quality through the process of packing, storage and distribution, in order to supply consumers in time and in the manner that they want to purchase.

This situation becomes more complicated by the need for cost reduction, product differentiation and biological and technological innovations within a continuous process of large urbanization of the population. The question becomes obvious: "How to distribute fruit and vegetables from local production to the consumer, maintaining the freshness and the desired quality."

To significantly reduce post-harvest losses of fresh food it becomes increasingly necessary to reduce the expansion of cultivated areas, with all its implications and environmental sustainability, as well as the expenditure of resources to the search for genetic material increasingly productive.

This reduction requires strategies that also include the selection of genotypes with adequate quality; the establishment of the point of harvest to its use, given preference to integrated production systems in which quality is the primary objective. The application of appropriate technology to prevent post-harvest deterioration of "fresh" fruit and vegetables is the appropriate alternative for reducing post-harvest losses. The current advances in productivity have increased partly the availability of vegetables, but the availability of these foods with the required quality by consumers, is still very much affected by the lack of adequate knowledge of the biology of these post-harvest, as well as the possibility of using technologies that are increasingly available in the environment in which the research is interdisciplinary and with great interest in disseminating the information available regarding to the harvested products.

The above leads us to the assertion by Chitarra and Chitarra in their latest book, "To overcome the barrier of the disability on quality and conservation, as well as losses in the marketing chain of perishable products such as fruit and vegetables, we need the use of appropriate technologies and training of qualified human resources well qualified in Agricultural Sciences and related areas."

José Fernando Durigan

E-mail: [e-mail]

Fruit post-harvest

The use of technology in post harvest vegetables is the application of knowledge in chemistry, physics, biochemistry, physiology, microbiology, refrigeration, logistics and others, so that they can supply consumers in different places and situations with fresh and better products with the quality desired by the consumers.

Publication Dates

• Publication in this collection
  06 Aug 2013
• Date of issue
  June 2013