Department of Post Harvest Management

The Department was established as a statutory department of Kerala Agricultural University in 1998 and started the P.G. and Ph.D. (Hort.) programme with specialization in Postharvest Technology in 1998.

MANDATE

• Undertaking research, teaching & extension on post harvest management including processing , value addition, quality control and marketing of horticulture crops of Kerala.
• Developing strategies for reducing post harvest losses in commercial horticultural crops of the state.

TEACHING The Department is offering 14 credit Ph.D courses, 21 credit P.G courses, 15 credit U.G courses, 3 credit B.Tech. Biotechnology and 4 credit diploma (Organic Agriculture) course. The intake capacity of the Department is four P.G and two PhD students per year. 36 M.Sc students and 5 Ph.D. students have passed out from the Department; among them, one student is in ARS, appointed in ICAR Institution and two have been appointed in KAU.

RESEARCH Department is actively involved in undertaking research programmes on post harvest technology, processing and value addition, benefiting the public at large. Focal areas of research include postharvest management, pre- harvest factors affecting post harvest quality, application of nanotechnology, post harvest management in organic crops, processing and value addition, packaging and storage of fresh and processed commodities, bioactive compounds and development of functional foods, bye product utilisation, development of novel and convenient food products and quality control studies. A total of 15 projects worth Rs.308.45 lakhs have been implemented in the Department and offered a Training and Certificate course on “Crop Production, Enhancement of Productivity, Value Addition and Marketing of Horticulture Crops”.

The Department has standardized several technologies for postharvest management and value addition in fruits, vegetables, plantation crops and spices, of which 9 technologies are published for commercialization under “Technologies for Transfer” by Kerala Agricultural University.

FACILITIES

• Techno Incubation Centre to help the prospective entrepreneurs and SHG groups ensure sustainable income and effective dissemination of value addition technologies operating on a revolving fund mode.
• Centre for the formulation of convenient foods which could serve as a model minimal processing unit fulfilling the requirement of FSSAI standards.
• Processing laboratory with FSSAI registration No.21317138000133 for commercial production and marketing of value-added fruits and vegetable products.

ACTIVITIES The Department is actively involved in all the extension activities viz., imparting on and off-campus training programmes on post-harvest management, value addition and processing, packaging technology, food additives and processed food quality standards for various stakeholders. Training classes in various Farmers’ seminars organized by the Department of Agriculture, VFPCK, SHM, Kudumbasree Mission etc. are handled by the faculty members and the Department provides technical consultancy services to farmers, entrepreneurs, exporters, NGOs and R& D organizations in fruit and vegetable processing Industry.

TECHNO-INCUBATION CENTRE ESTABLISHED IN DEPARTMENT OF POSTHARVEST MANAGEMENT

The State-funded Techno-incubation Centre has been established at the Department of Postharvest Management, College of Agriculture, Vellayani, Trivandrum under Kerala Agricultural University for the commercialization of value-added products from fruits and vegetables. The Incubation Centre aims to promote research on post-harvest technology and value addition for the benefit of people in the state and to set a benchmark in the field of fruit and vegetable processing to check post-harvest losses in the horticulture sector of the state. The Centre is the premier incubation unit of Kerala Agricultural University in Southern Kerala for post-harvest technology research with efficient and economic processing systems for horticultural commodities, particularly fruits and vegetables.

The Centre set up with the essential facilities required for the manufacture of value-added products, aims to help prospective entrepreneurs and Self-Help Group (SHG) members to utilize the facility, ensuring sustainable income. Another objective of the centre is to effectively disseminate the value of additional technologies, to strengthen small-scale processing units for undertaking commercial production and marketing of value-added products.

The Centre provides information to prospective entrepreneurs on the essential infrastructural requirement for setting up a processing unit on fruit and vegetable-based value-added products. The popularization of the products for income generation and employment opportunities for micro-entrepreneurs is also envisaged. The Centre has created infrastructure facilities including processing machinery for the production of dehydrated products, beverages, sugar-based products and pickles from fruits and vegetables to provide entrepreneurial support and creation of agri-business enterprises through technology development and commercialization. Technical support, transfer of technology, consultancy services and product quality analysis are provided to the entrepreneurs and SHGs on a marginal payment basis.