One of the major global challenges with the growing population is to ensure food security for all at the same time ensuring sustainable development. Postharvest losses (PHL) are a threat to sustainability of agricultural food systems and livelihoods of small-scale farming communities.
PHL occurs in the field, during transit to the markets and holding facilities as well as in storage 5. My thesis paper focused on storage postharvest losses in a household level with an interest in pests and pathogen losses. This is because according to FAOSTAT, losses that occurred in storage in smallholder farms were reported to be greater than losses caused in the transport, wholesale and harvesting levels. Additionally, poor storage structures in developing countries are the main causes of postharvest food loss in the supply chain 6.
The key focus of the study was on storage technologies which have been proposed to reduce PHL in Evidence of Resilience Agriculture (ERA) dataset. ERA is an analytical engine in World Agroforestry (ICRAF). The technologies include improved physical storage such as use of improved granaries or use of hermetic bags to reduce pest and pathogen losses and improved chemical storage where preservation of grains and fruits was done using diatomaceous earth (DE) or other chemicals. Use of hermetic containers and DEs as well as fumigants or other preservation chemicals helps in preventing insects and moulds 7.
An analysis was done to determine by what percent the proposed technologies reduced postharvest losses in storage facilities compared to control treatments. This was run using an ERA package developed for use in R Studio. In combination, the improved physical and improved chemical storage performed better than them being implemented individually. Improved physical storage reduced postharvest storage losses at a higher level compared to improved physical storage. This is because pests and pathogen may become resistant to agro-chemicals used in the storage facilities to minimize pests and pathogen postharvest losses such as fumigants and pesticides 8. Moreover, combination of different technologies such as use of improved varieties of seeds and sofa grain for chemical treatment proved more effective too.
At a household level, a farmer can reduce the storage losses incurred by adopting the proposed technologies to reduce the pests and pathogens postharvest losses. This increases the amount of food available for household consumption for a household that relies on agricultural production for household level consumption and more for those who sell part of their produce.
REFERENCES
1 Papargyropoulou, E., Lozano, R., Steinberger, J. K., Wright, N. & bin Ujang, Z. The food waste hierarchy as a framework for the management of food surplus and food waste. Journal of cleaner production 76, 106-115 (2014).
2 Aulakh, J., Regmi, A., Fulton, J. R. & Alexander, C. E. Estimating post-harvest food losses: Developing a consistent global estimation framework. (2013).
3 Costa, S. J. Reducing Food Losses in Sub-Saharan Africa. An ‘Action Research’Evaluation Trial from Uganda and Burkina Faso (2014).
4 Benhalima, H., Chaudhry, M., Mills, K. & Price, N. Phosphine resistance in stored-product insects collected from various grain storage facilities in Morocco. Journal of Stored Products Research 40, 241-249 (2004).