Postharvest losses make food security hard to achieve

Post harvest loss is not a new concept in Nigeria. It is responsible for wiping out as much as half of harvests for some crops, particularly perishable crops such as tomatoes, vegetables, and fruits. Some of these losses occur on the farm, during harvest, gathering, and others occur while the commodities are in transit, during offloading (due to poor handling), and in varying degrees in the entire process from farm to fork.

It does not end at just perishables, but even commodities such as grains. Post-harvest losses (in Nigeria) have been estimated to range between 5 and 20 per cent for grains; 20 per cent for fish and as high as between 50 and 60 per cent for tubers, fruits and vegetables.

Post harvest loss is not just a crop thing, it affects even dairy where if one milks a cow and it is not properly preserved within three hours, it will go completely bad.

“Tomato planted in Kano is coming to Lagos on petrol tankers,” noted Rotimi Fashola, head of Projects at Elephant Group plc, while contributing during a panel discussion on “Optimising Value by Eliminating Post-Harvest Losses”, during this year’s BusinessDay Agribusiness and Food Security Summit. As he explained, improper transportation such as the type adopted for moving tomatoes is part of the little things that contribute to post harvest losses. If crops are not properly handled they will surely perish.

As researchers have noted, increased food production is not the final solution to food security. It has to be complemented by good harvest and post harvest practices to reduce the amount of food loss. A 50 per cent reduction in post harvest food loss in Nigeria will also reduce the need for food importation.

Post Harvest losses as noted in a research paper by Bolarin, F.M. and Bosa, S.O cause both qualitative and quantitative losses. Qualitative losses included loss in edibility, nutritional quality calorie value, and consumer acceptability of the products. Quantitative losses are loss in quantity due to insect attack, rodents and microorganisms. Therefore, post-harvest food losses are one of the greatest threats facing food security in Nigeria today, and so all efforts must be geared toward reduction of post harvest food losses from field to the consumers.

To achieve this, the experts recommend that farmers, government non-governmental organizations, extension officers, research institutes etc work together in achieving the best from every food produce.

Jamie Rixton, chief agronomist, Ellah Lakes Plc, posed a question during the BusinessDay summit, that when everyone goes into primary production, “who provides ancillary services to support the production, and in doing so, help to curb post harvest losses.” Invariably, there is a need for conscious efforts to have potential investors in the agric sector, explore other areas of the value chain, particularly those in which they will be able to help primary producers minimise post harvest losses.