CONCLUSION
Post-harvest losses in fresh fruits and vegetables may occur anywhere from the point where fruit and vegetables have been harvested up to the point of consumption. Papaya is naturally fragile, it is a target to many post-harvest injuries and mechanical damages due to its thin skin and climacteric type ripening nature during post-harvest handling. The papaya fruit has a limited shelf life of less than a week under ambient tropical conditions. Literature review shows that limited work has been done on the development of an appropriate post-harvest handling of papaya fruit for application during storage and post-harvest handling of papaya under Africa climatic conditions. Temperature was found to be the most important environmental factor that determines the levels of papaya fruit and produces deterioration. Proper temperature and relative humidity management are required to solve the high post-harvest losses of papaya fruit under African conditions. With this background, research on the integrated agro-technology combining pre-harvest treatments to increase yield of quality fruit as well as post-harvest technologies for shelf life extension of papaya fruit requires immediate research focus.