The reduction of post harvest losses is yet another way to make agriculture profitable, said Kenes Exhibitions general manager Prema Zilberman.
Kenes Exhibitions is the organiser or Agritech Israel and Agritech Peru.
Ms. Zilberman, who is a citizen of Israel, was here in connection with the three-day Agri & Dairy Tech Andhra-2016, an international exhibition and conference on agriculture and dairy farming, being held in the A-Convention Centre from Thursday to Saturday.
She spent her childhood in Vijayawada and did her schooling in Nirmala Convent.
Speaking to The Hindu on the sidelines of the conference, she said that while the post harvest losses in the West were between 12 per cent and 30 per cent of the production, the post harvest losses in India were closer to 60 per cent.
With improved post harvest technology, the losses could be drastically reduced in horticulture crops. But, post harvest management for horticulture begins right from the sapling stage. For mango, the amount of water given to the trees, the length of the stem and the way the fruit is ripened constitute post harvest management, she said.
Peru was another country where Mango was a big crop, but grows in a different season. When the mango season is in its peak in India, there will be no fruit in Peru and vice-versa. So. it was possible for the farmers to exchange the produce, Ms. Zilberman said.
There was also high regard for Indian technology in countries like Peru because it was comparatively inexpensive, she said.
Farmers all over the world were learning through such exhibitions and technology exchange programmes. Israel was a pioneering in agricultural technologies making the best use of the available resources.
Drip irrigation
Experiments were being conducted for the cultivation of field crop with drip irrigation, she said. Kenes Exhibition was helping cultivators and dairy farmers in South America, Europe, Spain and Italy.
In India it had conducted exhibitions and conferences in Ahmedabad, Hyderabad and it was going to conduct exhibition-cum-conference in Vijayawada every year from here onwards, she said.
