Estimation of post-harvest losses of wheat in Indore (M.P.) India

Abstract

It is estimated that on an average total post-harvest losses was found to be 1.76 per cent of wheat at farmers’ level during different stages of post-harvest process. It is concluded from the data that among the total post-harvest losses of wheat the maximum loss occurred due to “storage losses” 22 kg of wheat per farm (0.51% of total production) followed by loss occurred due to “physical losses” 17 kg of wheat per farm (0.39% of total production), loss occurred due to “mandi losses” 13 kg of wheat per farm (0.30% of total production), loss occurred due to “market processing losses” 9 kg of wheat per farm (0.21% of total production), loss occurred due to “threshing and winnowing losses” 9 kg of wheat per farm (0.20% of total production), loss occurred due to “handling losses” 5 kg of wheat per farm (0.11% of total production) and loss occurred due to “transportation losses” 2 kg of wheat per farm (0.05% of total production) respectively. The data on total post-harvest losses of wheat per household has been calculated and presented earlier i.e. the post-harvest losses occurred during different stages was found to be 75.67 kg per farm. In terms of money the average wheat growers suffer due to Post-harvest losses amounting to Rs.1967.33 per farm which show that it is necessary to protect the post-harvest losses by which an additional income can be gained by wheat growers. The data also shows that among the all size of farmers, the percentage of wheat losses was found to increase with increase in size of holding.