New Digital Application Developed to Ensure Safety of Vegetables

Contamination of fruits and vegetables is a big problem nowadays. To assess the safety risks an innovative digital tool has been developed by the University of Costa Rica. The School of Agronomy researchers has come out with a solution by using smart phone or tablet that will avoid contamination of vegetables. 

Hort-inoc is designed for horticultural producers, collection centers, supermarket chains or franchises. This innovative digital platform, which can be used from tablets or smart phones, allows conducting a digital survey so that producers can assess the safety risks in production systems.  

Preventing the contamination of these products at  origin to avoid possible health problems in people is very important Researchers suggest using this tool under a preventive approach to recognize potential risk situations in the field and accordingly act on those potential risks.  

The tool is the result of a study carried out by a team of researchers as well as teachers from the School of Agronomy and Fabio Baudrit Moreno Agricultural Experimental Station of the UCR; made up by Engineer Dennis Mora Acevedo, Engineer Alfredo Duran Quiros, Engineer Guillermo Vargas Hernandez, and Masters of Science María Isabel Gonzalez Lutzm, from the School of Statistics.