The State funded Techno-incubation Centre has been established at Department of Post-Harvest Technology, College of Agriculture, Vellayani, Trivandrum under Kerala Agricultural University for the commercialization of value added products from fruits and vegetables. The Incubation Centre aims to promote research and extension activities on post-harvest technology and value addition for the benefit of people in the state and to set a benchmark in the field of fruit and vegetable processing with the objective to check post-harvest losses in horticulture sector of the state. The Centre is the premier incubation unit of Kerala Agricultural University in Southern Kerala for post-harvest technology research with efficient and economic processing systems for horticultural commodities, particularly fruits and vegetables. The Centre, set up with the essential facilities required for the manufacture of value added products, aims to help the prospective entrepreneurs and Self Help Group (SHG) members to utilize the facility, ensuring sustainable income. Another objective of the centre is to effectively disseminate the value addition technologies, with the intention of strengthening small scale processing units for undertaking commercial production and marketing of value added products. The Centre provides information to the prospective entrepreneurs on the essential infrastructural requirement for setting up a processing unit on fruit and vegetable based value added products. The popularization of the products for income generation and employment opportunities for micro entrepreneurs is also envisaged. The Centre has created infrastructure facilities including processing machineries for production of dehydrated products, beverages, sugar based products and pickles from fruits and vegetables with the intention of providing entrepreneurial support and creation of agri-business enterprises through technology development and commercialization. Technical support, transfer of technology, consultancy services and product quality analysis are provided to the entrepreneurs and SHGs on marginal payment basis.
Contact: Professor & Head, Dept of Post Harvest Technology,
College of Agriculture, Vellayani, Kerala Agricultural University (hodpoht.coav@kau.in)
