Abstract

More than half of tomatoes produced in Nigeria waste away due to improper post-harvest management practices. This scenario always forced farmers to sell at the point of production only for them to buy back at exorbitant prices few months after harvesting. This study assessed farmers? knowledge on post-harvest management of tomatoes in Kogi and Niger States, Nigeria. Multi-stage sampling technique was used in the selection of 340 respondents for the study. Data were collected from primary source using structured questionnaire. Descriptive statistics such as frequency, percentages and mean were used for data analysis. Results showed that 81.2% of the respondents were male with mean age of 42.6 years. Other farmers 75.0%, farmers? forum 67.1% and friends 51.2% were the major sources of awareness on post-harvest management. Less than half 40.9% and 34.7% of the respondents had medium and high knowledge on post-harvest management of tomatoes respectively. Efforts should be made extension agents through training in order to improve knowledge on post-harvest management.

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