The development of post harvest technologies in place of traditional techniques are presented here which help reduce the drudgery involved in post harvest operations. It is part of bigger picture of making drudgery free agriculture....

1. Dr. R. T. Patil,
Ex Director CIPHET, Ludhiana;
Chairman, Benevole Welfare Society for Post
Harvest Technology, Bhopal (MP)
Drudgery Reduction Technologies
For Post Harvest Operations

2. Indian Agriculture
• Dominated by Small holder farmers with average land
holding of 1.08 ha.
• 82% farmers are small (<2ha) and marginal farmers (<1 ha).
• In production agriculture hiring of modern drudgery free
equipment is possible due to broader period of operations
• In post harvest agriculture traditional practices are
preferred, due to very small window & need to sell the
produce at the earliest.
• Farmers don’t get premium price for better quality product
hence not motivated to do post harvest operations
themselves.
• This results in low income to farmers, high PH losses in
supply chain and higher cost to the consumers

3. What is drudgery?
Drudgery is termed as hard work,
monotonous work, time consuming
work, using traditional tools and
equipment with inappropriate
working posture in field resulting in
inefficiency and losses i.e. lower
quantity and quality of the produce.

4. Post Harvest Operations
Food Grains
•Harvesting at Maturity
•Proper threshing
•Post thresh cleaning
•Proper drying
•Safe storage
Processing & Value
addition
Fruits and Vegetables
•Harvesting at Maturity
•Safe harvesting
•Pre cooling & washing
•Surface drying
•Cool/cold storage
•Safe transport
•Safe handling
Value Addition to Main &
Byproducts

5. Post Harvest Losses
Commodity Increase in
Production, %
Quantitative
Post Harvest
Losses, %
Cereals 3.68 3.9-6.0
Pulses 9.64 4.3-6.1
Oil seeds 0.02 2.8-10.1
Fruits 4.14 5.8-18.1
Vegetables 4.70 6.9-13.0
Losses are mainly due to non use of efficient drudgery
free technologies

6. Some Post Harvest Technologies
for Drudgery Free Operations

7. Method of Determining Maturity of
Mango in Tree
• Eating quality and postharvest shelf life
of ripe mango depends on its maturity
at harvest
• Change of peel color and total soluble
solids (TSS) are indicative parameters
to measure maturity of mango.
• A maturity index was defined based on
TSS and colour values.
• The model was developed to predict
maturity using colourimeter
• Colour and maturity index chart were
also developed to determine maturity
• This technique can be employed for
sorting of mangoes .
Capacity
About 100 mangoes per hour

8. Fruit Saving Gadgets
After plucking
from tree, fruit is
dropped in the
trough of fruit
saver and
collected in a
box/container.
The fruits are graded on size basis at
appropriate places. Smallest grade fruit is
collected first and largest grade is collected in
last

9. Banana-Comb (Hand) Cutter
It is an useful to de-stem the comb from the banana bunch. It
replaces the use of sickle, which was much labor and time
consuming.
It is safe for human and banana hands and can be used for faster
work. 100 to 120 banana bunches can be de-handed per hour.
Saves 10 to 15 banana-fingers per bunch (i. e. 2 to 8 % reduction
in cutting losses of banana fruits)

10. CIPHET Tomato Grader
• The tomatoes roll down the pipes
due to gravity and fall immediately
wherever they find the space of their
diameter.
• Grades 3: 25-40 mm, 40-55 mm, 55-
70 mm and > 70 mm
• The collector is inclined at 10° so
that the tomatoes slide directly in
crates.
• The important feature of grader is its
ability to adjust the gap between the
pipes and inclination of grading table
and hopper.
• It can also be used for other round
fruits and vegetables.
Capacity: of 325 kg/hr

11. Hand Tool for Pomegranate Aril
Extraction
Capacity 10 kg/h

12. Sitaphal Peeling Machine
Removing the sitaphal seeds and pulp automatically without
disturbing the pulp texture. Capacity: 120Kg/hr, Efficiency: 94%
pulp recovery, Coarse / Intact Pulp recovery: 70-72%; Fine Pulp
recovery: 28-30%. The machine is licensed to NEXTGEN Drying
System, Pune

13. Aloe Vera Gel Extractor
•Aloe vara gel should be extracted
within 6 hours and processing must
be completed within 36 hours.
•An inner clear gel that contains
99% water and rest made of
glucomannans, amino acids, lipids,
sterols, vitamins etc.
•The equipment capacity 200-
225kg gel/h (900-1000 leaves/h) for
motorised and 100kg gel/h (400-
450 leaves/h) for manual machine.
•The extracted gel is clean and
without any physical damage.

14. Threshing of Grain
Thresher for separating wheat, peas, soybeans, and
other small grain and seed crops from their chaff and
straw

15. Winnowing of Threshed
Grain
Uncleaned grain deteriorates faster, affects further
processing, gets less price and some times creates
the crisis as happened in Odisha in higher brokens
in rice milling

16. Drying Cobs/Pods in
Inclement Weather

17. Storage of Grain
The modern storage bag of 1 T capacity is made
of multilayer plastic with a barrier layer. It has a two-track
zipper and is sealed using a zipper slider. It can store
commodities for prolonged periods without the risk of
moisture ingress, pest infestation and fungal growth.

18. Handling Equipment

19. Evaporatively Cooled Room for Storage of
Fruits and Vegetables
Compared on the basis of 10%
physiological loss in weight (PLW) the
shelf life inside the room was 34 days
for early kinnow, 23 days for late
kinnow, 11 days for cauliflower and 4
days for spinach as compared to 21,
11, 5 and 2 days respectively in an
ordinary room at the same time.
The summer temperature inside the EC room was 5-8C lower than
that inside the ordinary room and winter temperature was 5-8 C
higher than that inside the ordinary room.
Drudgery Involved in Frequest Visits to Market or Distress
Sale is Avoided

20. • Easy to use and drudgery free technologies are must
in post harvest operations to increase farmers
income and reduce post harvest losses
• Winnowers, vegetable washers, wheel barrows and
portable conveyors may be made available in village
panchayat for use by small farmers
• Incentives may be provided for adopting modern
storage technologies for grains and vegetables at
farmers level
Conclusion &
Recommendations

21. Email-ramabhau@gmail.com
Face book/ramabhau
Mob. No. 8964030701