Impacts of Harvest Process on the Onions Chain Management in Singida Urban District

Abstract

The agriculture sector is a key player in Tanzania's economic growth, which contributes to 45% of Gross Domestic Product (GDP), creating 80% employment opportunities (Putter et al., 2007). In Tanzania, the supply chain of fresh vegetables does not yet have an identity to stand alone as a horticulture sector, despite there is support from Government and non-government to empower the sector so that it can be able to make the products on an international commercial basis. This study targeted warehouse operators, farmers, retailers, distributors, consumers, and key information personnel involved in onion production within the study area of Singida Urban District. The study used a sample size of 100 respondents less than the targeted sample size of 138 obtained from the estimated population larger than 1000. The data was to be collected from a sample of 138 respondent who is stakeholders, in the onions business however, due to different reasons such as time limit, schedule conflicts, and financial constraints data was collected from 100 respondents. Data analysis for both descriptive statistics and inferential statistics was made possible with the help of Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS-21 version) software. In the study, the research objective was to assess the impact of the harvesting process of onions in supply chain in Singida Urban District. Whereby, about 34.8% of farmers experience a loss of less than 5 kilograms during harvesting, while about 32.6% of onion farmers experience a loss of between 6 – 10 kilograms. This indicates that a lot of farmers start to experience loss even before their yields reach the market and one of the reasons for this could be the using of poor harvesting techniques and equipment.