ASSESSING KNOWLEDGE LEVEL OF POST-HARVEST MANAGEMENT PRACTICES AMONG ONION GROWERS

According to reports, 40% to 50% of the perishables produced never reaches to the ultimate consumers due to post-harvest losses. These types of losses are specifically greater in the tropical and tropical nations like India. Onion being one of the important vegetables also faces a large amount of post-harvest losses due to lack of proper knowledge of PHM practices. As a result the socioeconomic system is periodically impacted by fluctuations in the supply and cost of onions. This paper attempts to assess the knowledge of the 120 respondents in one of the major onion-growing districts of Uttar Pradesh, i.e., Ghazipur. It was found that majority of the growers had medium level of knowledge with regards to the various management practices taken up by the respondents. The relationships of majority of the socio-economic characteristics were positively significant with that of the knowledge level of the growers indicating the impact of these characters on knowledge level. The government line departments, NGOs and other agencies should also make more efforts to raise the level of expertise in order to reduce the post-harvest losses suffered, since this will assist to increase farmer income, lower poverty, and achieve food security in the long run.