Global effort on tackling postharvest losses intensifies

Though postharvest losses of fruits and vegetables in Nigeria have gone down significantly due to growing commercial utilisation/consumption, infrastructural challenges still cause huge losses of virtually every food crop as a result of poor handling.   

This poor handling takes place during the harvesting of the crops, storage, transportation, processing and/even marketing. In many cases the poor handling is as a result ignorance on the part of the farmers, transporters, processors and marketers but in many more cases, it is as a result of poor infrastructure provision.

Electricity/Mechanisation

Lack or low electricity supply results in farmers using manual rather than mechanised implements. For instance, the use of combined harvesters entail fuelling with diesel with huge attendant costs. Also, in many cases the farmers cannot afford to buy the machineries and agric equipment hiring operators are still not yet widespread. Good storage facilities also need electrification and this is usually non-existent.

Roads

Most of the roads leading to the farming communities or between farms, storage/processing centres and markets are in a dismal state especially during the rainy season. As a result, the travel time is often longer than it ought to be and high humidity speeds up spoilage of the fresh produce

Market facilities

At many of the markets, except supermarkets, food commodities for sale are exposed to the vagaries of weather and insects, speeding up their spoilage.

These and many more result in spoilage. The issue of postharvest losses has however caught global attention and moves are being made to reduce or eliminate it. To that intent, the First International Congress on Postharvest Losses Prevention will be held in Rome, Italy, on October 4-7, this year. According to the organisers, this will be the first international conference to focus specifically on the issues and challenges of postharvest loss.

The purpose of the conference is to raise awareness of the significance of postharvest losses (PHL) in the context of global hunger issues and provide a knowledge exchange platform for PHL intervention plans, practices and policies. The congress seeks to create a global coalition for addressing PHL, create partnerships, and develop action plans for mitigating PHL.

Further details on the event as given by the organisers are as follows:

The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation estimates that one-third of the world’s food supply is forfeited between harvest and consumption. At the same time, people in many developing nations are starving, while the global population is expected to expand by as much as 70 percent by 2050. Reducing food loss, or postharvest loss, is a way to feed more people without consuming more land and water resources.

Over the course of three days, members of the PHL “community of practice” from more than 40 countries will address the many aspects of postharvest loss, from issues and interventions to measurement and education. Participants will include the world’s leading experts on postharvest loss and prevention in the technology/research, education and outreach, and policy fields.

There will be oral presentations and poster sessions, in addition to keynote and panel speakers. Congress attendees will enjoy a banquet on Monday evening, and many networking opportunities. The entire group will come together on the morning of the last day, October 7, to create a roadmap for future work on postharvest loss prevention. All the ideas of the preceding two days will lead up to this culminating event. The roadmap will be made widely available after the conclusion of the congress.

The event will be hosted by the ADM Institute for the Prevention of Postharvest Loss at the University of Illinois – Urbana-Champaign at the Auditorium Antonianum in Rome, Italy. The Rockefeller Foundation is a co-sponsor, and other high-level sponsors include the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, John Deere Co, United States Agency for International Development (USAID), and the University of Illinois College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences.

Since its establishment in 2011, the ADM Institute has emerged as a leader in the field of postharvest loss prevention.

Through groundbreaking research it has worked to create new, evidence-based knowledge and develop and introduce technologies. The Institute has built the capacity of stakeholders while driving a critical dialogue worldwide on how through the reduction of crop losses, food security and rural development can be greatly improved for producers and consumers worldwide.

OLUYINKA ALAWODE

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