Harnessing the indigenous technological knowledge base regarding post-harvest management of agricultural products

Abstract

Background: In the present agriculture scenario, the indigenous technological knowledges (ITKs) related to post-harvest management contributes to the sustainable livelihood of the rural people through improvement of shelf life of the perishable produces, development of value added product, and preservation of agricultural commodities. objective: The study was conducted to document and validate various ITK related to post-harvest management of agricultural produces depicted from the local people’s knowledge and experience in Darjeeling district of West Bengal. Materials and Methods: The information related to the same was collected from the selected key informants of the local area where the study was conducted. The simple random sampling procedure was followed to select the 100 number of key informants in case of identifying and documenting the traditional knowledge base related to post-harvest management. All these ITKs were documented with the help of some key features of the knowledge and validated by collecting the information from 25 key informants who were locally available and has the expertise on that knowledge. Results: The study has identified 10 ITKs related to the post-harvest management and value addition to the agricultural produces. Out of those 10 ITKs, 8 ITKs were found to be scientifically valid and economically feasible and environmentally safe. These ITKs are timely tested and may be further extrapolated in the similar type of ecosystem. Conclusion: The findings will help in developing the contents of ITK which will be disseminated to the entire community for its future implication in other areas.