Abstract:
Vegetables are essential food items that provide daily nutritional
requirements to maintain healthy life for human beings.
Therefore, it is necessary to maintain continuous production and
supply. The unexpected Covid-19 plague disrupted the production,
sale and distribution of vegetables so that producers, traders as
well as consumers happened to face unexpected problems.
Accordingly, a study was conducted with the main objective to
investigate the post harvesting losses associated with upcountry
vegetable before and under COVID-19 pandemic situation
comparatively. To achieve the main objectives a field survey was
carried out by collecting primary data from 16 traders from the
Economic Center and 50 farmers from 05 Grama Niladhari
Divisions of Welimada divisional secretariat area using stratified
sampling technique. Additional information was collected by
using interviews with farmers and traders and secondary data.
Data was analyzed using quantitative, qualitative methods and
paired T tests were performed to confirm the difference between
the variables associated with before and during the COVID-19
pandemic statistically. Results reviled that, there was a significant
difference (p <0.05) in post-harvest losses coursed at farm,
transport and wholesale lelves in marketing of vegetables before
and during the COVID-19 pandemic. Several factors affected to
increase post-harvest losses and there are the harvesting was
delayed, number of barriers were faced during transportation, the
economic center has been closed for several days, vegetable prices
have fallen and wholesales have declined. It can be concluded that
the post-harvest damage to upcountry vegetable has been affected
by the covid-19 pandemic.
