- Author: Christine Huang
- Editor: Mary E. Reed
- Author: Diane Nelson
- Contact: Mary E. Reed
- Contact: Elizabeth Jeanne Mitcham
Now there is, thanks to the UC Davis Postharvest Technology Center’s new Produce Professional Certificate Program, the first of its kind in the world. Led by a cadre of the most respected experts in postharvest technology, the certificate program covers everything from safety, new technologies, physiology, harvesting, cooling, transportation, ripening, marketing fresh produce and more.
Participants view a lettuce field-packing demonstration in the Salinas Valley during the 2012 Postharvest Technology Short Course Field Tour, just one of the opportunities offered in the Produce Professional Certificate Program. “It’s fantastic,” said Leo Kelly, a product development specialist with Monsanto Vegetable Seeds who focuses on developing tomatoes, peppers, melon, broccoli and other commodities with improved traits like flavor, nutrition, color and convenience. When the Postharvest Technology Center first started offering the Professional Certificate Program in early 2013, Kelly was among the first in line.
“I had attended some of their other courses and I really admire the instructors’ knowledge and expertise,” Kelly said. “This certificate program gives me a deeper understanding of the science behind postharvest technology, the reason you do the things you do, like store tomatoes at a different temperature than onions.”
Kelly has a Ph.D. in cereal biochemistry, 20 years experience in the food industry, and five years experience with Monsanto. And, he says, there is still so much more to learn.
The program allows participants to customize their curriculum through an a-la-carte menu of classes in addition to three core classes — the Postharvest Technology Short Course, the Produce Safety Course and either the Fruit Ripening and Retail Handling Workshop or the Fresh Cut Products Workshop. Some of the customized classes can be taken online and you have four years to finish.
“That’s very convenient for working people like me,” Kelly said. “You can keep your job and get the education.”
The program is designed for anyone in the fresh produce industry, no matter their specialty or level of experience. Postharvest technology involves people all along the supply chain — growers, shippers, packers, retail and others — and Kelly says participants benefit from that diversity.
“You network with people throughout the industry and from all over the globe,” Kelly said.
The produce professional certificate program will help employers, job-seekers and anyone who wants to expand their postharvest expertise, said Beth Mitcham, director of the Postharvest Technology Center and a postharvest biologist and Cooperative Extension specialist with the Department of Plant Sciences at the University of California, Davis.
“When produce industry employers are hiring, candidates with a Produce Professional Certificate will have an advantage over other candidates,” Mitcham said. “When you know the candidate has learned and demonstrated knowledge of best practices for produce handling, you’re confident they will be an asset to your company.”
Depending on which courses you choose, the certificate program will cost about $7,500 over four years. For more details, check out the Postharvest Technology Center website at http://postharvest.ucdavis.edu/ or contact the center staff at (530) 752-6941 or postharvest@ucdavis.edu.
- Editor: Mary E. Reed
- Author: Lisa Kitinoja
On October 12, 2012, the first Postharvest Training and Services Center (PTSC) officially opened its doors. Located on the AVRDC-The World Vegetable Center's Regional Center for Africa Campus in Arusha, Tanzania, the Center will serve as a model for postharvest development in Sub-Saharan Africa.
Physical losses of horticulture crops during postharvest range from 30 to 80 percent in Sub-Saharan Africa, and problems with food quality, safety and nutritional value are well documented. Because past projects have identified appropriate postharvest technologies and recommended a variety of training, capacity building and small-scale infrastructure development, but had not integrated these recommendations into local solutions, the Horticulture CRSP awarded a Pilot Project in 2011 to Diane Barrett of the University of California, Davis, Lisa Kitinoja of the World Food Logistics Organization, and Rob Shewfelt of University of Georgia. Drs. Barrett, Kitinoja, Shewfelt and others have been conducting a year-long, online training of 36 agricultural professionals in advanced postharvest technology.
From October 8 to 19, these “Master Trainers” completed their training in-person and officially open the first Postharvest Training and Services Center (PTSC) by participating in a series of training programs for local farmers in Arusha before returning to their own countries with the designs and tools needed to launch new PTSCs and provide similar services and training. This project and the PTSCs will provide access to training programs, adaptive research and demonstrations, and the needed tools and supplies in order to reduce postharvest losses and improve market access and incomes for smallholders and women farmers throughout Africa.
The Horticulture Collaborative Research Support Program (Horticulture CRSP) builds global partnerships for fruit and vegetable research to improve livelihoods in developing countries. The program is managed by UC Davis (directed by Beth Mitcham who is also the Postharvest Technology Center's Director) and funded by USAID. For more information, visit http://hortcrsp.ucdavis.edu.
- Author: Mary E. Reed
It was a painstaking process to winnow through all the applications and select just one individual that we thought would best be able to implement the stated goal of taking the information learned back to their home country and sharing and utilizing that information to make improvements in the local and regional postharvest handling systems. We selected Mekbib Hilegebrile Seife, a Post Harvest Technology Researcher with the Semera Rural Technology Research Center in Ethiopia.
We enjoyed the opportunity to get to know Mekbib during his June 17-29, 2012 visit to California. He wrote the following report for us upon his return to Ethiopia:
I was very happy and pleased during the time that I spent with all of the UC Davis people for those two weeks, those weeks were the happiest weeks in my life. I feel it from the deep part of my heart! You did a wonderful thing for me in my life! Thank you very much!
I wish for all UC Davis people long life and great success!
What did you enjoy the most?
Firstly, I was very admiring of UC Davis. It is an ideal place for academic growth, and pleasant for life. The city was calm, beautiful, ever-green, friendly for bicycles and also included very nice, peaceful and cooperative peoples. Secondly, I felt great pleasure and proud to be there on two weeks with other people who have done a lot of wonderful jobs and have placed their finger-print on the changes occuring in this fast and dynamic globe, with their two hands and out-of-border thinking minds.
The first week of the course was so fantastic; the program presentations were clear, concise, self-explanatory, practical, and systematic. All the materials were well supported by well-prepared documents, best research practice, current and updated information, references, manuals, photos and illustrations, which will make recall easier for me, and my future career more successful. There was free, frank, open and hot discussion between the scientists and the participants. In addition, the demonstrations of cooling methods and instruments for monitoring different parameters; quality and sensory evaluation; and also post-harvest diseases and diseases control tools were so impressive. They all gave me practical and fundamental post-harvest technology knowledge and a wide variety of information on horticulture crops.
What was your most interesting experience?
The second week was an incredible long field trip; it included all the food pipe line (Growers, Shippers, Marketers, Carriers, Distributors, Retailers and Processors). I visited more than 25 different organizations. It was enjoyable, impressive, and beneficial in terms of the transfer of a wide variety of technologies and knowledge that will be helpful to me in my home country.
I also got to meet a wide variety of people that came from different continents of the world, all in one hall at UC-Davis. I gained a wide variety of experience, knowledge and information. It was an interesting experience and a great opportunity, where I learned many things from many people.
Was there something specific you learned that you think will be helpful to you in your work?
The two weeks of training helped me by updating the current post harvest handling of horticulture crops and best practices. This area is a very big challenge in the growth of my country's productivity. I also increased my skills, devotion and commitment to transfer this new information to researchers, experts, extension workers and my people to utilize and benefit from the current knowledge. In general, the training was a life changing asset that I will always remember easily and which will help me throughout my life.
I would like to extend my deepest thanks to everyone at UC Davis, the Leonard and Marseille Morris Trust, the Postharvest Technology Center and Postharvest Education Foundation for their generosity and kind spirit for an individual from developing country, to advance postharvest handling education that is the bottle neck of the development and growth of a developing country's productivity.