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Post Harvest Loss - Challenge

  Post harvest losses, specifically, food loss and waste are a global endemic challenge that affects all nations, rich and poor.

  Food losses and waste are seen during the food supply chain, from initial agricultural production stages to the end household consumption stage.

  In developing nations food losses are borne during the post harvest and processing stages, while developed and high income countries register food waste during the retail and consumption stages of the end consumer.

FAO Food Loss / waste indicators	Europe & North-America	Sub Saharan & South/ South-East Asia
Total per capita production of edible food for human consumption	900 kg/ year	460 kg/ year
Per capita food loss	280-300 kg/ year	120-170 kg/ year
Per capita food waste	95-115 kg/ year	6-11 kg/ year

Ref: FAO study, Global Food Losses and Food Waste, 2011

  Each country has a unique set of drivers that are responsible for causing food losses and food waste.

  Country specific factors such as selection of local crops and production trends, available infrastructure, presence and alignment of marketing chains and channels to facilitate distribution and consumption of agricultural commodities determine food losses.

  Poor and developing nations have a common set of factors in terms of poor roads, infrequent supply of electricity at high tariffs, absence of dry and cold storage facilities, and fragmented logistics which tend to hamper the efforts of these nations in reducing food losses and waste from farm to fork.

Indian agriculture is not immune from these problems and serious efforts need to be marshaled on a large scale to stem the repercussions of food losses and waste.