Opinion- Food abundance impossible without technology

Post harvest losses

It is sad that people go hungry in this country in spite the quantity of food produced by the various value chains.

That Nigerians still go hungry day by day due to food wastage across the nation, is a situation that demands an urgent attention lest it leads to generational suffering and malnutritionin the near future.

The media in general have reported figures of more than 111 million people hungry daily and yet we waste 10billion naira worth of food annually. The question is not why, but how we can prevent this situation that is gradually leading to more than a quarter of the food produced in Nigeria spoiling.

Although it is the right of every Nigerian citizen to eat daily, people go hungry because our farmers produce everyday but battle with post-harvest losses caused by severe weather, disease and pests, or poor harvesting and lack of storage facilities and techniques. Annual post-harvest losses for cereal grains, roots and tuber crops, fruits, vegetables, meat, milk and fish amounting to more than 10billion naira worth of food annually is recorded according to several reports.

About 10 per cent is wasted before it leaves the farm and retailers waste another 10 per cent. More waste occurs in grocery stores, restaurants and hotels and in the storage and transportation process.

The travel industry is a huge food-waster, one study estimated that the amount of food that gets wasted during transportation, could feed 200,000 people across the country each year.

The amount of food that ends up wasted is more than enough to feed every Nigerian who goes to bed hungry, or wakes up not knowing for sure where their next meal will come from, and has informed the recent call on the high rate of malnutrition that makes the country’s massive and unfortunate hunger problem also largely unnecessary, and requires that habits be changed and incentives introduced to help keep food waste out of wastebags, and put it on the plates of those who need it.

It’s cruel that we waste billions of naira worth of usable food each year, and funny enough the waste affects us all, adding 10 per cent or more to the cost of our food, although few of us do not want to waste food and would be happy to see it go to people who need it. Thumbs up to those who are making that happen.

In either case the extraordinary quantity of food going to waste can be checkmated through the control of the excessive production of foods that never makes it off the farm for those that can stand severe weather, disease and pests, or poor harvesting and storage techniques thereby saving the country billions of Naira annually, through the use of refrigerated trucks and a distribution system with cold storage where foods approaching their best-before dates are examined and repacked for distribution to local non-profit agencies, the needy or to farmers as livestock feeds when it is past its usefulness to humans instead of wasting, could also help avert the farmers’/herdsmen clashes.

To put under check the amount of wastages government needs to make provisions for right techniques and technologies that will preserve the value of the food that are thrown away due to annual post-harvest losses by  having the Ministry of Agriculture, and Rural Development through its Minister of Agric in partnership with the legislature propose a federal legislation that would use tax incentives to encourage farmers, retailers, restaurants and schools to reduce waste, diverting what can still be eaten to food banks situating within and outside the country, other organizations that help feed the poor, and turning non-edible food scraps into energy or compost to avoid the waste stream, just as it was done in the United States by the U.S. Rep. 

ChelliePingree, and also done in the University of Maine-Farmington, where a  student  founded a local chapter off the Food Recovery Network, in Aramark, the school’s food service provider packages and preserves unused food, and volunteers pick it up each week and take it to the Homeless Outreach.

Many food retailers also donate food that has exceeded its “best-by” date (which doesn’t truly reflect how long a product is good for, another target of Pingree’s bill). Shaw’s Supermarkets recently ended their donation program in the Brunswick area, until they were scolded into reversing course.

Perhaps better tax incentives would shore up these programs, and allow some retailers to expand them. As part of this effort, the entire food chain must be examined to see where food is falling off into the waste stream.

Consumers, too, need education on the scope of the issue, and on how to shop smarter, and to properly use food waste.

Technology can help, as well, to connect retailers and other suppliers of bulk food to the charity organizations that feed the poor.

Hunger is a massive problem, and solutions, particularly those that transcend political lines, are not easy to come by.

But we know that the billions of naira and food value that go waste each day in Nigeria, where 111 million persons have trouble feeding themselves at some point this year, can be checkmated if  government truly plans on feeding the next generation.

Remember it’s just my opinion if we’re looking for answers, let’s start there.