Vegetable Transport

Transportation and distribution of vegetables are important areas of post harvest losses. With packaging been taken care earlier we now focus on transportation. In India transportation of vegetables for the local market is brought by bullock carts or tractor trolleys. In this case, and, with improper packaging, 30-40 per cent of vegetables perishes in transit. Apart from the cost of direct losses there is the additional cost of transportation normally, the cost of transportation is negligible compared to the volume of business. Expensive Labour in the cities is used in waste removal, for sorting and grading to cater to the needs of different market segments. Proper packaging will help to avoid this. Hence, it is sensible to spend some money in preparing the vegetable for transportation, as it will still be economical. The carts, trailors, and trucks used in the field should have good suspension and low type pressure to avoid excessive jolting of produce and should be driven slowly. Long distance transportation of vegetables is mainly by road and is costly. The basic reason in preferring the road transportation is that it takes short transit period and hence less transit damage. The contribution of rail transport in vegetable movement is relatively low. Because of the wastage etc.

Introduction of longer and bigger vehicles (volumetrically), on the tractor-trailer or trucks for transportation will help in getting rid of some evils. Where produce is likely to be left standing in a vehicle for more than an hour, it is necessary to provide some form of ventilation. The use of refrigerated trucks for the purpose has proved to be expensive. Unless certain amount of initial processing takes place as mentioned earlier, it may not be possible to use modified atmosphere systems like nitrogen spray which will keep the ambient modified to allow longer shelf-life of vegetable. The use of railway wagons will continue to be difficult unless there is a comprehensive redesigning of the railway wagons to move the vegetables across the country. But, there is reluctance on the part of the railways to go into this question in the manner desirable in the larger interest of the nation. It may be due to the lack of statistical information, which will help them establish the feasibility of such a proposal. Another reason being that, the rail-freight moves at concessional rates, and hence there is no need to commit more investment in a losing sector.

In case of vegetable processed by individual quick freezing (IQF) technology, the IQF-vegetable should be transported from factory to refer containers to ship by refrigerated trucks. This is in case of exports. Vegetables with short shelf life are airlifted for export purpose. This could also be done to transport vegetables to hilly regions from the place where they are produced. But the charges in this case are Rs.60/kg.

(Vegetable Growers)