“Workstation” to reduce post-harvest losses and add value to food production

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Reducing post-harvest food waste and losses can substantially contribute to reducing food insecurity. Post-harvest operations are characterized as all the steps that follow the harvest of a product until its consumption. In this project, we are devoting efforts to disseminating technologies to reduce the losses that exist in operations after the harvest of fruits and vegetables, in the municipalities of Cláudia and Sinop. Thus, the target audience of this project are agroecologically based rural producers and their families.Before the dissemination of technologies to reduce losses, a mapping of the harvesting, packaging, selection, storage and transport processes will be carried out in order to identify the main loss points and quantify the losses of the species at the time. It should be noted that agroforestry systems, such as those proposed in the learning units (UA) of registered producers in Sinop and Cláudia, are unique and highly variable, according to the climatic conditions of the region, interest of the producer, size of the area, aptitude , etc. Thus, an AU will be able to generate more than one map to reduce loss and waste, due to the production of more than one kind of fruit or vegetable during the execution of the project.For this mapping, the methodology of Lana (2010) will be used. Following the mapping activity, the technology called “workstation” will be disseminated to producers through workshops. The workstation is made up of a set of “equipment” that facilitate and increase the yield of fruit and vegetable harvesting and processing operations. Often, work performance decreases and losses occur due to the repetition of activities such as lowering, lifting, carrying the harvest or even leaving the harvested products exposed to the sun. In addition, indirectly, physical fatigue and thermal discomfort contribute to reducing work performance. However, often, due to the size of the property, there is no adequate infrastructure to keep the products protected from the sun while finalizing the harvest and carrying out operations such as selection, cleaning, packaging and classification, which are related to maintaining the quality and durability of fruits and vegetables. The benefit of reducing losses and waste reaches from the rural producer to the entire population in a way that contributes, including to achieving global goals of sustainable development. But, in addition, also aiming at the best use of production, this project proposes workshops for adding value, that is, workshops that transfer to producers knowledge and technologies that allow them, from what they already produce, and some improvement , they can increase the amount charged for selling their products.In preliminary consultations with the producers, what most interests them is the fruit canning and dehydration workshop. However, these themes will be defined in order to cover the largest number of producers and aiming at the transformation of the largest number of products. Finally, in parallel, this project will also develop an application to connect suppliers of fruits and vegetables from small businesses in Sinop to potential buyers, with the aim of giving these suppliers one more opportunity to sell their products before discarding them and, thus reducing food loss. In addition to the benefit of increasing sales and reducing food loss, using the application it will be possible to quantify food loss in the municipality of Sinop for this specific audience. It must be considered that currently this is unknown data, at any level, and is the information necessary for the creation of a public policy to reduce food loss and waste or reduce hunger. (Google Translation)

Status: Completed Start date: Tue Mar 01 00:00:00 GMT-03:00 2022 Conclusion date: Mon Jul 31 00:00:00 GMT-03:00 2023

Head Unit: Embrapa Agrosilvopastoral

Project leader: Silvia de Carvalho Campos Botelho

Contact: silvia.campos@embrapa.br