Author(s):

Kiran Sharma, Megha Sahu and Sudhir Singh

Abstract: India is an agricultural country from immemorial time, which is endowed with abundant natural resources. In soybean production system, the post-harvest losses occur at all stages of operations. The Sehore district purposively selected for present study because, this district is one of the important soybean growing tract in the state. Multi stage stratified random sampling technique was used for drawing a sample for the study with the objective to assess the extent of post harvest losses of soybean at different stages of post harvest operations in different size of farm. Study revealed that as the size of farm increases, the harvest losses, threshing and winnowing losses, handling losses, physical losses, storage losses marketing processing losses, Mandi losses and transportation losses also increase. On an average size of farm in the study area average harvest losses were observed 52.31 kg/ha., average threshing and winnowing losses were 4.60 kg/ha., average handling losses were 2.35 kg/ha., average physical losses were 8.78 kg/ha., average storage losses were 11.57 kg/ha., average marketing & processing losses were 4.75 kg/ha., average transportation losses were 1.13 kg/ha., average Mandi losses were 6.55 kg/ha. The total post harvest losses of soybean per hectare in physical quantity and monetary terms were also estimated. The data shows that on an average, per hectare post harvest losses were found to 95.33 kg per hectare which amounting Rs.2669. On the other hand, the data shows that on an average, per quintal post harvest losses was found to 6.76 kg per quintal which is amounting Rs.189. It is suggested that reduction in harvest and post harvest losses should be checked by farmers in every stage of marketing and efforts should be made to popularize post harvest technology amongst the farmers so that they could able to take advantage of time, place, form and possession utility of the product and earn more by reducing the post harvest losses occurred in soybean. Study revealed that the maximum post harvest losses were occurred during harvesting of soybean. Hence, the farmers should be advised through training and demonstration for utilizing soybean seed which are not shattering during harvesting and their proper harvested method. To obtain good quality and quantity of soybean grains, it is necessary that the threshing and winnowing should be done properly so that the grain should not be broken, spelled and mixed with foreign materials. In regions, the threshing and winnowing of soybean is done by manual on small scale. However, on large scale threshing and winnowing is done by machine. The suitable machinery viz. thresher and winnower etc should be used for threshing and winnowing. Hence, farmers should be given proper knowledge about protective process, practices and use of proper post harvest machineries at farm level.

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