CONCLUSION
In Africa, huge postharvest losses especially of horticultural produce have been reported due to lack of packaging, storage facilities, and poor means of transportation. In spite of these facts, the attention given to reduce this postharvest loss has been low in the past. However, in recent years the postharvest handling of horticultural crops is becoming the area of research and there are some considerable work done in this area on different crops. Banana is one of the most common and widely grown fruit crops. It is a delicate and highly perishable fruit, and the production is subject to poor handling and storage practices and postharvest diseases. As a result, a huge postharvest loss of banana has been reported every time and these postharvest losses are incurred at different stage from harvesting to the final consumption. Traditionally, farmers use teff straw and banana leaf during transportation and storage mainly to avoid mechanical damage during transportation and to avoid water loss during storage. These two materials are better to
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keep the fruit than keeping in an open air, but there are also other modern packaging materials like polyethylene bags with different permeability to gases and water vapour which improve the shelf life. So, the following aspects should be considered: in order to draw a general recommendation, research should be done on different polyethylene bag packagings and also on the physicochemical properties of the cultivars at different times and in different locations; there is a need for testing the suitability and application of different types of polyethylene bag packagings for banana and other crops; these packaging treatments should be combined with other pre package treatments like disinfection in order to guarantee the complete post harvest quality of banana fruit and finally, there is also a need to carry out research not only on the preharvest but also on the postharvest approaches hand in hand to reduce losses and maintain quality