Food Loses in the Selected Food Supply Chains

Food Security, 2023

During the last decade, post-harvest losses (PHL) reduction has been topping the agenda of governments as a pathway for addressing food security, poverty, and nutrition challenges in Africa. Using survey data from 579 households, we investigated the factors that affect farmers' decisions to adopt post-harvest technologies: mechanized shelling, drying tarpaulins, and airtight storage validated for reducing PHL in Tanzania's maize-based systems, and the impacts on households' food security and welfare. Mechanized shelling addressed a labor issue, while tarpaulins and airtight storage addressed product quality and quantity concerns. The results revealed large farm sizes and location in higher production potential zones (proxies for higher production scale) and neighbors' use of the technologies as universal drivers for adoption. Access to credit and off-farm income were unique determinants for airtight storage, while group membership increased the probability of adopting drying tarpaulin and airtight storage. The technologies have positive impacts on food security and welfare: drying tarpaulins and airtight storage significantly increased food availability (18-27%), food access (24-26%), and household incomes (112-155%), whereas mechanized shelling improved food and total expenditures by 49% and 68%, respectively. The share of total household expenditure on food decreased by 42%, 11%, and 51% among tarpaulin, mechanized shelling, and airtight storage adopter households, signaling significant improvements in food security and reductions in vulnerability. The results point to the need for policy support to enhance the adoption of these technologies, knowledge sharing among farmers, and financial resources access to support investments in the technologies.

2005

The present article reviews selected key challenges regarding food security from both an academic and policy-oriented angle. In the analysis of the main constraints to achieve food access and availability in low and high-income societies, a detailed distinction is made between technological and institutional aspects. In the case of low-income economies, the emphasis is placed on the socio-economic situation and performance of small-scale farmers while in high-income economies the focus is shifted towards issues of price volatility, market stability and food waste. In both scenarios, productivity and efficiency in the use of resources are also considered. The objective of this assessment is to identify the type of policy support which would be most suitable to fulfil the increasing food demand. Innovation programmes and policies which integrate institutional coordination and technical support are put forward as strategic tools in the achievement of food security goals at regional and global level.

2020

Currently, more than enough food is produced to feed the world’s population of 7 billion inhabitants. However, latest FAO fi gures indicate that 842 million people were undernourished in 2011-13. Food security exists when all people, at all times, have physical and economic access to suffi cient, safe and nutritious food that meets their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life. There are four dimensions of food security: the availability of food; access to food; utilization of food and food system stability. Looking to the future, there are also major challenges ahead from the rapidly changing socio-economic environment (increasing world population and urbanization, and dietary changes), climate change and erosion of natural resources. The projected food demand in 2050 will increase by 60 percent. The sustainable increase of productivity, based on the adoption of technological and organizational innovation in agriculture, is therefore key to achieving food ...

2014

The world’s population is expected to reach 9 billion by 2050. Climate change, population, and income growth will drive food demand in the coming decades. Baseline scenarios show food prices for maize, rice, and wheat would significantly increase between 2005 and 2050, and the number of people at risk of hunger in the developing world would grow from 881 million in 2005 to more than a billion people by 2050. Food Security in a World of Natural Resource Scarcity: The Role of Agricultural Technologies examines which current and potential strategies offer solutions to fight hunger. The type and effectiveness of agricultural technologies are highly debated, and the debates are often polarized. Technology options are many, but transparent evidence-based information has been inconclusive or scarce. This book endeavors to respond to the challenge of growing food sustainably without degrading our natural resource base. The authors use a groundbreaking modeling approach that combines compr...

John Wiley & Sons, Inc. eBooks, 2018

Food security has become a common concern among academicians, socio-economists, and scientists, capturing worldwide attention among politicians and lawmakers alike. Food security refers to less availability of food and the options available or not available for enhancing its security. There is no one clear definition for a lack of food security, as the causative factors are multiple and broad. In general, the ultimate result of these factors is the lack of adequate food and nutrition for humans and livestock, with the result that poverty, hunger, and impaired development of children afflict the poorer nations and result in trauma. One may envision that food security is not as much an issue in the advanced world as it is in pockets of other, less advanced regions, where people do not have access to adequate daily requirements of food. In this chapter, we focus on some key causes of the lack of food security and how these causes may be averted, since many are anthropogenic in origin. During the 1996 World Food Summit, the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) defined food security as, "Food security exists when all people at all times have physical and economic access to sufficient safe and nutritious food to meet their dietary needs and food preferences for a healthy and active life. " The main points of vulnerability were categorized into availability, stability, utilization, and access (Schmidhuber and Tubiello 2007). These in turn depend on several critical points in the agriculture and food value chain. In general, factors affecting food production-short-term and long-term storage, distribution, processing, wastage, etc.-play critical roles in achieving food security.

were also identified. The results generally imply that a concerted effort is required to enhance household food security through the accelerated introduction and dissemination of appropriate agricultural technologies in rural Ethiopia.

2014

The chapter argues that more enabling policies on agricultural products production and trade should be encouraged. Policies should always be directed so that they are in line with major development goals. For example, the policy on subsidies should be reviewed based on its implementation challenges. Though there have been proposals to withdraw this policy. The pros and cons of this action should be critically analyzed because it can bring food production activities to a standstill, which may result into food insecurity. Secondly, the current market structure for some agricultural products is still facing challenges of continuously fluctuating prices, high production costs etc. and as a result some farmers may not be able to continue operations should the subsidy be withdrawn. The chapter also recommends a user-friendly agricultural system and simple but high output technology methods should be vigorously introduced and sustained by African governments, private sector, NGOs and farme...

Agriculture

This Special Edition of Agriculture on The Role of Agriculture in Addressing Food Security, Ecological Sustainability and Quality of Food has seven articles ranging from technological solutions, the importance of quality standards as a means to addressing global trade and farm incomes, through to those with a focus on sustainable development partnerships, and at the micro level, the importance of self-help through home gardening in Vietnam [...]

2016

Much of sub-Saharan Africa’s farmland is (still) cultivated with the hand hoe, and agricultural processing and transport are often done manually. This limits the potential of agriculture in the region. Mechanisation can help to alleviate food shortages and enhance agricultural development. However, this implies high levels of investment for farmers and some risks for rural populations and eco-systems. The necessary financing is especially difficult to access and risky for longer-term agricultural investments such as mechanisation. In addition, there can be trade-offs between mechanisation and employment. To better understand how mechanisation can contribute to food security, this study first assesses the controversial impact of mechanisation on rural populations and their environments. In a second step, the difficulty in accessing financing is analysed, distilling success factors for financing mechanisation. Thereby, the study aims at bringing the sectors of agriculture and finance ...

2016

The numerous positive changes that will evolve in the area of food security in Nigeria, Africa and the world at large when there is a proper synergy between Technology development and Human Empowerment are properly highlighted in this article. Technology Entrepreneurial development with regards to Food security is a vast and new field of study with quite a large number of untapped resources yet to be identified. This article defines and describes the application of this field and also shows how its application can lead to improvement in Food Security.