The effect of post harvest losses on the profitability of green bananas among retail traders in Jinja central market

Abstract

Green bananas are also known as cooking bananas or matooke and are consumed as staple food in Uganda. Green bananas are sold in different forms namely clusters, fingers and butches. Cooking bananas lose significant amounts every year in different postharvest operations such as handling, transportation and storage. These losses have significant consequences such as limited access to better markets due to reduced green banana quantity and quality, loss of revenue, real income to the people involved in the value chain and reduction in the overall national income. Therefore postharvest losses can significantly effect on the overall profits obtained from trading green bananas. The study therefore aimed at the effect of postharvest losses on the profitability of green bananas among retail traders in Jinja Central market. This was guided by different objectives which included to quantify the postharvest losses of green bananas to the retail traders in Jinja central market, to estimate the profits obtained from trading green bananas and to estimate the effect of postharvest losses on the level of profits obtained from trading green bananas. The target population was retail traders in Jinja Central market and a sample of fifty respondents were identified using random sampling technique. Primary data was collected, recorded in Microsoft excel and analyzed using stata version 15. Most of the retail traders who specialized in selling green bananas were female and majority attained an education level of 7.3 years. Bruises and damages were found with the highest percentage of 40% compared to ripening with 30% and poor storage and handling with 30%. All green banana retail traders in Jinja Central market have no insurance and store in the market. Selling green bananas in form of butches was found to be more profitable compared to selling clusters and fingers. An increase in the total postharvest losses faced by retail traders reduces the profits by 45%. Therefore, there is need to reduce on the rates of postharvest losses in order to achieve the sustainable goals of the country and retail traders