by
Tim Rendall, Jacob Ricker-Gilbert and Nyssa Lilovich, Purdue University, USA
Preventing food losses worldwide: An overview
Food security does not end at harvest. Despite advances in agricultural productivity, hunger, malnutrition and poverty remain stubbornly persistent in many developing countries. One contributing factor is that more than one-third of the food produced worldwide is lost or wasted after harvest.
The post-harvest value chain, which encompasses the crop from when it is harvested to when it is consumed, includes the stages of handling, drying, storing, transporting and processing. In Africa, two major factors cause significant food loss: poor post-harvest management leading to mould contamination and insect infestation during storage; and constraints in the food-processing sector leading to inefficient processing and substantial loss of quantity and quality of food. These losses result in limited market and economic opportunities for farmers. These losses can be mitigated by cost-effective on-farm drying and storage technologies, along with food-processing innovations, including nutritionally enhanced product development.
Only recently have post-harvest issues, including the link between agriculture and nutrition, gained greater attention in agricultural development programmes. In 2014, a United States Agency for International Development (USAID)-led initiative, Feed the Future, partnered with Purdue University to establish the Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Food Processing and Post-Harvest Handling (FPIL). The project focusses on post-harvest solutions to develop sustainable, market-driven value chains that reduce food losses, improve food and nutrition security, and contribute to economic growth for smallholder farmers.
The FPIL addresses post-harvest challenges with cereals, including maize, sorghum, and millet in Sub-Saharan Africa. The following three activities implemented under the project demonstrate the positive impact that the FPIL project has had in addressing challenges in two core areas of the project: grain drying and storage, and food processing and nutrition.
Read more HERE.
Preventing food losses worldwide: An overview
Food security does not end at harvest. Despite advances in agricultural productivity, hunger, malnutrition and poverty remain stubbornly persistent in many developing countries. One contributing factor is that more than one-third of the food produced worldwide is lost or wasted after harvest.
The post-harvest value chain, which encompasses the crop from when it is harvested to when it is consumed, includes the stages of handling, drying, storing, transporting and processing. In Africa, two major factors cause significant food loss: poor post-harvest management leading to mould contamination and insect infestation during storage; and constraints in the food-processing sector leading to inefficient processing and substantial loss of quantity and quality of food. These losses result in limited market and economic opportunities for farmers. These losses can be mitigated by cost-effective on-farm drying and storage technologies, along with food-processing innovations, including nutritionally enhanced product development.
Only recently have post-harvest issues, including the link between agriculture and nutrition, gained greater attention in agricultural development programmes. In 2014, a United States Agency for International Development (USAID)-led initiative, Feed the Future, partnered with Purdue University to establish the Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Food Processing and Post-Harvest Handling (FPIL). The project focusses on post-harvest solutions to develop sustainable, market-driven value chains that reduce food losses, improve food and nutrition security, and contribute to economic growth for smallholder farmers.
The FPIL addresses post-harvest challenges with cereals, including maize, sorghum, and millet in Sub-Saharan Africa. The following three activities implemented under the project demonstrate the positive impact that the FPIL project has had in addressing challenges in two core areas of the project: grain drying and storage, and food processing and nutrition.
Read more HERE.
The Global Miller
This blog is maintained by The Global Miller staff and is supported by the magazine Milling and Grain
which is published by Perendale Publishers Limited.
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