Estimating Post-harvest Losses in Fruits Supply Chain in Middle Gujarat Region

Background: This paper attempt supply chain and post-harvest losses in fruits cultivation. India ranks second in fruit and vegetable production in the world. Methods: A data was collected from seven districts of middle Gujarat for identifying the existing supply chain in fruit supply chain and calculate the post-harvest losses. Tabular Analysis method was used to calculate post-harvest losses. Result: In middle Gujarat average production of banana, mango, papaya and lime was 863.80, 105.00, 810.97 and 540.00 q/ha respectively, where total damaged fruits at filed level was 6.59, 2.50, 2.30 and 1.01 per cent in banana, mango, papaya and lime, respectively. Losses at wholesale level is quite high as compared to field level because after harvesting this fruit passes through village level suppliers in banana or pre-harvest contractors in case of mangoes and papaya and APMC wholesaler in lime supply chain. Post-harvest losses in different fruit crops at retail level, highest loss at retail level found in papaya which was 8.70 followed by mango 8.09, banana 4.41 and lime 2.70 per cent. These losses can be minimized using new advancement and mechanization in harvesting and postharvest losses like, mechanical harvesting, pre-cooling immediately after harvesting, proper packaging and storage.