Taiwan, China's agricultural products push for export markets; post-harvest expert Hsieh Ching-chang: production and marketing regulation is more important than marketing
The new government is working hard to promote agricultural exports, but the painful experience of banana exports to Japan reflects insufficient basic work in post-harvest handling of agricultural products, cold chain transport and so on. Xie Qingchang, associate professor of the Department of Horticulture at National Chung Hsing University, who has long studied post-harvest handling, said that the technical level is easy to solve, but if market research is not done well at the front end, traders have no united strategy, and production and marketing do not do a good job of division of labor and coordination, then no matter how good the post-harvest technology is, it is useless.
Fruit exports: post-harvest handling is the key to quality
Xie Qingchang has devoted himself to research on post-harvest handling of fruit for more than 30 years. He single-handedly established mango post-harvest handling technology and studied the most suitable storage temperature for mangoes, laying a solid foundation for mango exports to Japan.
"Post-harvest handling is nothing more than solving the problem of agricultural product loss." Xie Qingchang pointed out that from the moment agricultural products are harvested, respiratory metabolism begins aging, water loss, decay and so on. In the face of these problems, as long as temperature, relative humidity, and the concentrations of gases such as oxygen and carbon dioxide in the air can be well controlled, mastering these three major principles can extend the storage, transport and sales time of fruits and vegetables.
To reduce quality deterioration in fruits, vegetables and flowers after harvest, low-temperature storage is the simplest method, because low temperature can reduce the respiration rate of agricultural products, the action of ethylene, water loss, microbial growth and so on. Taking Irwin mangoes as an example, Xie Qingchang's research found that because Irwin mangoes are transported as "soft-ripe fruit," compared with green mangoes, aging and fruit rot are very fast, so the optimal storage temperature should be maintained at 2°C to 4°C, rather than the 12°C written in early textbooks.
However, for an Irwin mango to be exported and enter Japan's high-end market is not so simple. Xie Qingchang pointed out that attention must begin from the moment of harvest. Farmers must cut the fruit stalk to leave 2 cm, so that sap does not flow out and affect appearance. After that, through selection and grading, vapor heat treatment must also be used to kill the Oriental fruit fly (placing mangoes in a vapor heat chamber between 47 and 49°C for 30 minutes). Then after packaging, pre-cooling and quarantine inspection, they can be sent to the transport container.
Compared with mangoes, which are harvested and exported when red on the tree, export bananas are mostly at 7.5 maturity, harvested while the peel is still green. Xie Qingchang explained that this is because the Oriental fruit fly only lays eggs on yellow-ripe bananas, not green-ripe bananas, so importing countries generally have such quarantine regulations. Taking Taiwan's 7-day transport schedule to Japan as an example, 7.5 maturity is the best harvest stage. After arriving in the importing country and passing quarantine, ripening will begin.
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