Horticulture and Food Safety and quality

Food Safety and Horticulture

1. PAKISTAN HORTICULTURE INDUSTRY
PRODUCT QUALITY PROCESSING AND IMPROVEMENT

2. Importance of Horticulture Sector
About 44% of Pakistan’s population is facing acute malnutrition with special reference to essential micronutrients
(40-80%) like iron, calcium, vitamin-A etc. The horticultural commodities can help in mitigating these issues.
According to an estimate, per capita consumption of fruits and vegetables is about 6-10 times lesser compared to
the developed countries. So, the significant opportunity in the agriculture crop sector to shift its production focus
from conventional crops to nutritive crops like fruits and vegetables.
The Horticulture industry requires radical changes with enhancing opportunities for value addition of horticulture
produce to increase the economic value and consumer appeal of commodities. The value addition results in adding
“incremental value” to the product in the market place either through higher prices or expanded market.
•Changing industry from production based to quality and export based.
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Improved post-harvest, handling and transportation including cold chain: packing, storage, reefer containers) and involving private sector investment in cold chain infrastructure.
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Extensive Training in Post-harvest hanlding processing, food safety and nutrition
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Improving quality and value addition for compliance, exploring new markets and developing Market Intelligence System
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Implementation of EUREPGAP, HACCP, etc., ensuring the food safety and security systels ar ein place

3. Multiple Challenges in Horticulture Markets
•Middlemen pre-purchase and pay for the harvest of entire fields, this does not
encourage the farmer to produce quality produce.
•Produce brought to market by the farmer in sub-standard packaging such as large
bags of undifferentiated produce is both wasteful (in terms of increased post-
harvest losses) and the potential for damage to the produce does not preserve or
reward quality.
•Post-harvest losses encourage the underpayment of farmers because someone has
to absorb the losses, and farmers are the most vulnerable market actors.
•Grades and standards exist in the minds of middlemen, who can manipulate the
grading system to their advantage and to the disadvantage of growers.
•Grades and standards defined by the trade in partnership with government, and
enforced within the commercial system would reduce waste and increase profits
for farmers.
•Inadequate Cool Chain and Cold storage facilities causing deterioration in quality of
the best fruits and vegetables produced by the farmers.
•There is less information with the farmers to follow the “Field Heat Removal” from
the produce before packaging and shipping to the market. This practice can slow
down the decay process in the perishables.

4. Food Processing Potential
Pakistan has a number of comparative advantages for continued development of the
horticulture sector. This includes the capacity to produce a wide range of tropical,
sub-tropical, and temperate crops from the diversity of agro-climatic zones that exist
throughout the country.
A large and expanding domestic population requires continual supplies of fresh
market and processed fruit and vegetable products. Consumption of horticultural
crops continues to increase domestically as well as internationally. This creates
significant market opportunities for those producers who can provide the markets
with consistent supplies of high-quality fruit and vegetable products at competitive
prices. Dr. David Picha – Visiting Horticulture expert Pakistan