Editorial- Tackling post harvest losses

post harvest losses

That Nigeria is losing ten billion naira to post harvest damages alone in this dispensation of economy diversification should be a thing of concern to all and sundry.

The Country Director, Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition (GAIN) Mr. Michael Ojo, recently in Lagos said that preliminary research shows Nigeria as losing up to N10 billion to post harvest damage which of course was worrisome in this particular dispensation which its hallmark is commercial agriculture aimed at achieving food security and ensuring more earning to generating employment to both the youths and women.

By this revelation, it has put on spot the programme of commercial agriculture of the government  as about 51.3 metric tonnes of food wastages occurred due to postharvest losses occasioned by lack of best handling, processing and marketing as this was alluded to by the Executive Director, Nigerian Stored Products Research Institute (NSPRI), Prof. Olufemi Peters revealed at a function in Imo state that Nigeria losses more than $8.9 billion,equivalent of N22.9 trillion annually to post-harvest food losses.

This is the height our inability to squarely face challenges of ensuring food security and export has taken us with no adequate provision for basic facilities that will strengthen commercial agricultural productivity through best agronomics post handling, availability of storage for preservation and even processing into other derivatives for better earning.Does one need to remind the authorities of the extension services that are struggling to survive despite its strategic role to transferring best agronomics of planting, harvesting and post harvesting cum primary preservation for further evacuations?

It is obvious as one travels by road seeing many food wastages even in the course of transporting from one state to another occasioned by accident and even breakdown of the vehicles thereby resulting in wanton spoilage before reaching its final market destinations. This means bad transport system for agricultural produce mobility and lack of cold room or refrigerator vehicles for fresh vegetables, fruits and animal milk movement from production points to market.

If as at today with the level of our economic challenges, we as a nation has not woken up to tackling our infrastructural facilities to boosting food productivity through less postharvest losses, then our crave to achieve food security and checkmate foods import may get to be a mirage.

With many people going hungry as a result of scarcity of food cum population increase tendency by FAO speculations, there would be no need over flogging this strong challenge facing and drawing us backward in our pursuit of commercial agriculture than for  government to take another proactive approach of strategic handling of postharvest losses using technologies and innovations to reduces food wastages, otherwise the percentage wastage will be increasing exponentially, hence food hunger to the masses.

In the face of several temperature anomalies over agricultural cropping and livestock keeping with frequent spells of extreme heat in the last five years (2011-2016) as rain patterns too have been affected with unequal distribution of rainfall within a season, there is need for government to deplore more scientific method of curbing wastages from the quantity of food she may have been able to produce annually in order to curb food insecurity occasioned by post harvest losses in Nigeria.