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Summary:
Agriculture is undoubtedly the most important and widely practiced
discipline by the human being. These practices have their
roots dated back to ancient civilizations, and the developments
of all kinds of ancient technologies by the man were closely
tied up with agriculture. With the industrial revolution,
and the subsequent advancement of technologies, the agriculture
was gradually transformed into a knowledge based industry.
This was mainly due to the great deal of scientific research
that had gone into improving the productivity and the quality
of agricultural products. One of the major challenges faced
by many nations belong to the developing world today, is the
transferring of such knowledge to farmers who are accustomed
to traditional agricultural farming, and post harvesting techniques.
It is very common in developing countries that substantial
percentage of agricultural produce go in waste due to poor
harvesting, processing, packing, and transportation techniques.
Drying of paddy (rice) under high humid conditions, damaging
of fruits in harvesting and packing, vibration induced damages
to fruits and other soft agricultural produce while transportation
on poor roads are, for example, some of the problems faced
by farmers in Sri Lanka. An attempt that has been made to
address some of the above mentioned problems and find solutions,
is presented.
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