An appraisal of the current practices used in the post harvest handling of fresh fruits in Minna was conducted to identify the inherent problems involved. This is with the view to generate useful information and results to maintain quality and curtail losses. The Investigative Survey Research Approach (ISRA) was used, thus structured questionnaires were administered to the okra farmers and marketers in the selected locations within Minna environs i.e. Sabon–gida, Garatu, Gidan-mangoro and Minna central market through personal interviews. The result shows that the current post harvest system was faced with a lot of problems, some of which were poor road network, lack of pre-cooling systems, poor harvesting methods, unavailability of desired vehicles for transportation and the produce from to farms the homes or to the markets at the right time, have been identified as the major points where the reduction in quality occur. The result of the study suggests that better methods should be paid to these points in order to reduce / minimize the current losses and maintain the quality of marketable okra.
Keywords: Okra, Postharvest handling, Pre-cooling systems
