Post Harvest Losses in Tomato in the Esikuma Odoben Brakwa District of the Central Region of Ghana

The aim of this study was to investigate factors influencing postharvest losses in the Esikuma Odoben Brakwa District of the Central Region in Ghana. Simple random procedure was used to select the operational areas and accidental sampling procedure was used to select sixty tomato growers. Results on socio-economic characteristics of farmers revealed that, majority of the farmers, 61.7% were males, 48.4% were in the active workforce of 25-40, 60.0% married and 71.7% had farm sizes ranging from 1-3 hectares.51.7% of the farmers had education up to the primary level, 71.7% had household size between 2-8 and 86.7% of the farmers had less than 15 years’ experience in the crop production. Consequently, The major causes of postharvest losses in the crop indicated by farmers include lack of storage facilities with 86.0%, followed by bad road networks with 76.0%, lack of processing facilities with 64.0% and lack of ready market with 62.0%.It was also revealed that almost all farmers in the study area preserve the produce by pouring on bare cemented floor covered with grasses and also store in shallow baskets. In summary, all the identified factors have proved to have significant impact on post harvest losses and that when managed well, food security would be ensured without necessarily cultivating an additional hectare of land.