Post-Harvest Losses of Paddy Rice in Cambodia
Sok Kunthy
Proceedings of the APEC symposium on postharvest handling systems Bangkok, Thailand September 1-3, 2003. p. 355
2003
บทคัดย่อ
Post-Harvest Losses of Paddy Rice in Cambodia
Postharvest losses of rice were determined in selected areas of the Special Program for Food Security pilot sites in Takeo, Siem Reap, Kompong Cham, and Kompot province, Cambodia. The study also focused on identifying postharvest practices and technologies to reduce losses. one hundred households were selected for interview and the survey was done from October to December 2000. Results revealed that the total loss ranged from 13.75% to 43.16%, with an average of 35.25%. To reduce losses, the rice crop should be harvested when the grains were 80-85% straw-colored to minimize shatter losses, decrease breakers during the threshing and milling, and reduce damage during machine threshing. Threshing should be done in the field before transport in bags. Since some grains fall off to the side of the thresher, unthreshed sheaves or plastic sheet should be placed around it to recover the grains. Storage facilities should be improved to minimize both quantity and quality losses. Postproduction technologies should be commercially viable.