Online Reporter
Charles Dhewa
IT is no longer enough for farmers to know how to produce particular commodities.
This is because agricultural and food commodities participate in a competitive environment, so there is a need to identify areas of improvement towards meeting customer expectations.
Therefore, it is important for farmers to know market profiles and performance of the commodities that they produce. Most farmers focus on production and productivity but lack information on market-related crop profiles and performance.
More importantly, farmers need to know competitors of their commodities because any change in the price in the market results in significant change in demand as consumers move to or from substitutes.
When farmers reduce the price for a commodity that does not have close substitutes, such an action has no influence on demand, since consumers have no other option.
Conversely, in cases where a commodity has close substitutes, when farmers reduce prices of such commodities they tend to attract more customers from the close substitutes.
Examples of close substitutes are in leafy vegetables like covo, rape and tsunga as well as sweet potatoes and yams (madhumbe), which often compete for the same customers.
Handling commodities before taking them to the market
The most taken for granted stage in agricultural supply chains and food systems is carefully handling commodities after production in order to increase shelf life or prepare for the market.
The following commodities have been selected to demonstrate best practices in harvesting, storing and preparation for the market. Farmers who produce for their own consumption with no surplus for the market may never know expectations.
Potatoes
Harvesting should not be done under rainy conditions because harvesting in muddy circumstances affects the skin quality of potatoes and reduces shelf life in the market.
Grading should be done soon after harvesting by size — removing rotten ones and cuts. The graded sizes should be clustered into extra-large, large, medium, small, charts one and charts two (very small, also called bullets).
Farmers should never mix good tubers with damaged ones because damaged ones spoil the good. Packaging should also be by sizes and grades, although some customers may prefer mixed.
Also, never put tubers directly on the floor. Lay them on dry grass or large cardboard boxes. Pockets should only be used when packaging for the market, not for storage. Storage should also be by size.
Potatoes should not be exposed to direct sunlight. Store in a shade, piling them for a height of 20 centimetres and below. Bigger heights attract moisture and rotting. The shade should have proper ventilation, especially during the day.
Potatoes should not be stored for more than five days before being taken to the market. The longer the storage, the lower the quality. After storage, when pocketing, potatoes should be regraded because some would have gone bad or rotten.
Butternuts
When harvesting butternuts, keep the node of the stem to increase shelf life. And when harvesting, the team should not throw the butternuts.
After harvesting, start grading by size from extra-large to small, but the most common sizes are large, medium and small.
Premature harvest fruit with very long green lines and pigment affects storage life. Butternuts can be stored in rooms or open spaces, but avoid direct contact with the floor and the wall.
The advantages of storing butternuts include quality improvement. As they turn golden brown through storage, they become sweeter. When piling butternuts, farmers should leave a walking path, which also provides aeration.
Butternuts can be kept for up to four months.
Factors affecting the storage timeframe include cool temperatures and creating small piles of about 30 centimetres in height. During storage, continuously move them to select the ones going bad, once every month.
To store them, farmers can use hanging pockets or stack them in a circular shape. Butternuts should never be washed or put on the floor.
When packaging for the mass market, use big 60kg bags, but when filled to the brim the bag can weigh up to 90kg. Farmers should use weighing scales to ensure exact measurement.
Sometimes, counting is the right way of avoiding losses to middlemen. When counting the tubers/fruits, each bag can be filled with 75-90 large sizes, 120 – 130 medium sizes or 120-140 small sizes.
Cucumbers
Avoid bruising and cracking during harvesting, grading and packaging.
Handle with care because the skin is too fragile.
Don’t remove the stem nob.
Grading should be according to size from small, medium and large. Also, remove the defective ones.
Storage can be under trees or properly built sheds and piling should be done by grading to a height of about 15-20cm. Cucumbers should not have direct contact with floors or walls, and should be properly aerated and kept in a cool environment. For the market, cucumbers should be packed in 60kg bags.
They can only be stored for a day or just overnight before going to the market because they are highly perishable. It’s advisable to harvest cucumbers when transport is already at the farm.
Sweet potatoes
After harvesting sweet potatoes, farmers should grade them into large, medium and small as well as very small and rejected ones. They can be packaged into 60kg bags for the market.
Sweet potato leaves are often used in sealing the bag. They can be stored for up to a week, even on the floor and can be piled up to a metre. They are also strong and have a long shelf life.
Sweet potatoes are sold by weight at formal markets. In Zimbabwe, a method called muridi is traditionally used for storing sweet potatoes in a pit dug to a depth of a metre.
Feedback: [email protected]/ [email protected]/ [email protected]
