Brenda Ziga Harare Bureau
Sub-Saharan Africa is losing grain worth $4 billion annually due to poor handling and storage facilities, a Ministry of Agriculture, Mechanisation and Irrigation Development official has said.
The lost grain has the capacity to meet the minimum food requirement of 48 million people.
Addressing delegates at a three-day Food Loss Reduction Strategy Development in Favour of Smallholder Producers in Africa workshop in Harare, department of research principal director in the Ministry of Agriculture, Mechanisation and Irrigation Development Danisile Hikwa said the last few years had seen an unprecedented increase in global awareness and concern about the rampant loss and wastage of food occurring in the supply chains.
“As indicated by the FAO Zimbabwe Representative, Dr David Phiri, a report under its Global Initiative on Food Loss and Waste Reduction in 2011 estimates that a third of the food produced globally each year is lost or wasted and is therefore unavailable for human consumption,” said Mrs Hikwa.
Hikwa was speaking on behalf of the Minister of Agriculture, Mechanisation and Irrigation Development Joseph Made.
She said the levels of loss were clearly unacceptable, especially on the African continent where food and nutrition insecurity remained a major challenge.
“I’m pleased to note that the reduction of food losses is increasingly being recognised as a priority by African leaders and therefore being positioned as an integral component of sustainable food systems,” she said.
She said improvements in agri-food systems were not just about improving productivity, but making more efficient use of the produce that had been harvested, through improved storage, handling, processing and other value adding initiatives.
“In view of the current efforts to improve agricultural productivity in the region and noting the large number of countries that are planning ,the time is opportune for incorporating and strengthening food loss reduction interventions into national agricultural strategies,” she said.
She said there must be clear roles for both the public and private sectors in the reduction of food loss and waste.
“Governments cannot by themselves reduce losses. Their role is to provide the enabling environment, conducive policies and institutional and regulatory frameworks that will enable private sector actors to develop modern and efficient food supply chains with minimal losses and maximum benefits for all value chain actors.
“Government’s role would be to create the enabling environment and provide oversight, especially to ensure equitable participation of smallholder farmers and other weaker actors,” she said.
Hikwa said in Zimbabwe, post-harvest management was a relatively new science and most extension staff had not been well trained in this subject.
“In-service training has been mostly used to build their technical capacity but more needs to be done to build a cadre knowledgeable in post-harvest issues and the skills to advise not just farmers, but other value chain actors.
“Farmers though rich in experiential learning, face new challenges in grain storage due to changes in varieties, storage practices, pesticide failure, new pest challenges and or market failures; all of which require new approaches,” she said.
Speaking at the same workshop, Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) sub-regional coordinator for southern Africa and Zimbabwe representative David Phiri said reduction of food losses and waste was essential to improve food security and reduce the environmental footprint of food systems.
“Food represents a significant investment of our limited natural resources, and food losses and waste also impacts on the future of these resources.
“We welcome this increasing call to action to address food losses and waste reduction at regional and national levels, and FAO stands ready to support food loss reduction initiatives, in collaboration with its partners,” he said.