Indigenous post-harvest handling and processing of traditional vegetables in Swaziland: A review

The magnitude of post-harvest losses of fruits and vegetables in developing countries like Swaziland can reach up to 50% depending upon the commodity. The diet of rural Swazi folks is made up largely of a variety of seasonally available traditional vegetables whose nutritional and medicinal value is well appreciated. Several traditional vegetables are harvested, handled and processed using local indigenous knowledge (IK) at household level in Swaziland. Due to unaffordability of freezing and chemical processing technologies for preservation, drying has been the predominant method for traditional vegetable preservation, where the dried product is known as umfuso. Drying techniques which have been employed by rural folks from time immemorial are today being forgotten due to escalating rural-urban migration of younger people seeking employment in the industrial sector of Swaziland. Other techniques like solar drying and freezing if adopted may help increase chances of extending availability of traditional vegetables in Swaziland. The traditional vegetables include pigweed (imbuya), vegetable jute (ligusha), black jack (chuchuza), bitter gourd (inkhakha), cowpeas (tinhlumaya), pumpkins (ematsanga) and taro (emadhumbe). Research activities on indigenous post-harvest handling and processing of traditional vegetables are yet to gather momentum with the idea of incorporating use of modern methods and equipment. Local IK systems with regard to processing of traditional vegetables may be threatened by urbanization and hence the threat of losing oral tradition with time. Available information and future prospects pertaining to post-harvest handling, storage and processing of traditional vegetables has been reviewed here.