Determinants of Choice of Postharvest Practices in Mango and Passion Fruit Loss Management in Selected Counties of Kenya

Abstract

Mango and passion fruits are highly perishable and despite the gains in their production, postharvest loss management remain a major challenge. This study therefore sought to identify the determinants of choice of postharvest practices in postharvest loss management of mango and passion fruit in Makueni, Machakos, Embu, Uasin Gishu and Trans-Nzoia Counties. Descriptive cross-sectional design was used on a target population of 18750 smallholder mango and passion fruit households to get a sample size of 402 households through cluster random sampling. The study considered storage location, packaging materials, vehicle transport, store type and cleanliness of the harvest equipment as the postharvest practices. Multivariate probit model was utilised in the analysis of the determinants of the postharvest practices’ choices. Age, years of schooling, group membership, access to electricity, access to bank account and internet had a positive and significant effect on the choice of postharvest practices. Gender, access to agricultural training, credit access and off-farm income had a negative significant effect on postharvest practices choices. Increased involvement of men in the postharvest stage lowered the adoption of proper choice of transport and handling of fruit produce by 62%. Agricultural training had a negative and significant effect on the choice of store (p=0.059<0.1) and the choice of vehicle transport (p=0.000<0.01) for the harvested produce. The multivariate analysis showed that agricultural training accessed is associated with 78.6% decrease of the farmers with proper vehicle transport and 34.1% decrease on store type utilized for harvested produce. The model showed that 88.7% of the farmers accessed credit for other farming needs other than postharvest loss management. The findings show that agricultural training offered focuses more on increasing production and farmers channel more of their income and credit to production and very little to postharvest management. It is recommended that National and County Departments offering agricultural training to mango and passion fruit farmers should emphasize not only on fruit production practices but also on postharvest loss management. Farmers need also to invest not only on increasing fruit production but also on postharvest management.