Practice Proper Harvesting This Season

By Joshua Kato

It is the time of the season when harvesting of produce for the first season starts. Countrywide, farmers will soon be harvesting cereals and vegetables.

While the vegetables will be sold off almost immediately, some of the other products, for example cereals, will be dried and sold later.

According to research, farmers lose between 30-40% of their produce during this period. Here are some tips to enable benefit from your harvest.

• Harvest only mature produce. Immature foods compromise the quality of the produce.
• For vegetables, stop using chemicals at least two weeks before harvesting. Chemical residue is one of the reasons Ugandan vegetables find it difficult to get consistent markets in Europe.
• Think about the packaging of the vegetables. For example, throwing tomatoes around wooden boxes may affect their longevity. Place them in the holding boxes gently.
• For cereals, select a good place for drying them. Most cereals like maize and ground nuts are easily affected by the deadly aflatoxin. Do not leave them in the rain because it causes them to rot.
• When they dry, store them in a dry sack (kutiya) or aerated polythene sacks as you wait for buyers. Keep them on raised pallets. n Keep pests and rodents away from your produce.