Saturday, November 27, 2010

Indian post harvest technologies can help Egyptian farmers: reveals Dr Moustafa

Ludhiana, November 27:



"Agriculture in Egypt is still not highly mechanized. Indian post harvest technologies can help lot to farmers of Egypt". This was revealed by Dr Moustafa Saleh Emam, Chairman of Vegetable Handling Research Department, Agricultural Research Horticultural Institute, Gizo, Egypt, who was here on training programme on post harvest at Central Institute of Post Harvest Engineering and Technology (CIPHET).



Having very less sources of irrigation, Dr Moustafa said that presently less than four million acres of area in Egypt was under irrigation. "Most of the country is under desert and still ancient river Nile is major source of irrigation for fields," he said, adding that due to very small landholdings large scale mechanization of agriculture is not possible. "Potato, cotton, rice, maize, garlic, green beans, strawberry, wheat, cotton are our major crops. But, very less fruits and vegetables are processed and most of them are consumed as fresh. We are trying to increase their processing and seeking Indian expertise in that," he added.



Dr Moustafa said that he was quite impressed with research work on non-destructive methods to evaluate quality of fruits and vegetables, drying methods for fruits and vegetables and work on modified atmosphere packaging at CIPHET. "These technologies can help to increase income level of our farmers," he added.



Head Transfer of Technology Division Dr Deepak Raj Rai gave a brief presentation on modified atmosphere packaging. He informed the Egyptian scientist that there was long chain of middlemen involved between farmers and consumers in India. "This is led to manifolds escalation of prices till time it reaches to consumers. While middlemen get most of the profits, farmers are left with peanuts only," he said, adding that by using Modified Atmosphere Packaging farmers could take the benefits of longer storage and could be saved from distress selling. "With increased shelf life, they would not require selling their produce immediately and also fruits and vegetables could be transported to faraway places," he added



Dwelling on advancements in packaging, Dr Rai said that mathematical modeling could help in design of appropriate packaging for different fruits and vegetables, without investing much time and money on research. Dr R.K Gupta, CIPHET Abohar Incharge, who is coordinating the visit of Dr Moustafa, said that they would provide all possible assistance to him. Director CIPHET Dr R.T Patil, briefed Dr Moustafa about achievements and mandate of CIPHET and institute's contribution to post harvest. He hoped that new era of agriculture cooperation between India and Egypt would begin with more such visits of scientists taking place in near future.
News From: http://www.7StarNews.com

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