FACTOR ANALYSIS OF CONSTRAINTS TO EFFECTIVE CONTROL OF POST-HARVEST LOSSES OF FRUITS IN NORTH-CENTRAL, NIGERIA

The study analyzed the constraints to effective control of post-harvest losses of selected fruits among rural farmers in North-Central, Nigeria. It specifically ascertained the level of effectiveness of management strategies for controlling post-harvest losses and also identified constraints to effective control of post-harvest losses of fruits in the area. Purposive and simple random sampling techniques were employed to select 182 respondents from 4865 registered mango and orange farmers from Benue, Nasarawa and Kogi States. Primary data were collected through the use of well-structured questionnaire and analysed with descriptive and inferential statistics. The result showed high effectiveness on storage using refrigerator, evaporative coolers and oven (=3.58), use of improved harvesting techniques (=3.58) and use of calcium chloride, methylchlopropene and post heat treatment (=3.57). Result also revealed that socio-economic factors (factor 1), infrastructure cum technological (factor 2) and administrative/managerial factors (factor 3) were the major category of factors influencing the utilization of post-harvest management strategies of fruits in the area. The Kruskal-Wallis (H) test also found that there was a significant difference on the level of utilization (p=0.0138) as well as on the level of effectiveness (p=0.0347) of strategies for controlling post-harvest losses of fruits across the states in areas. The study recommended that intervention by both government and other stakeholders in addressing post-harvest losses of fruits and vegetable should focus on socio-economic, infrastructure cum technological as well as the administrative/managerial factors in order to reduce post-harvest losses and enhance attainment of food security.