Contribution to the HLPE consultation on the V0 draft of the Report: Food losses and waste in the context of sustainable food systems
By Switzerland
Congratulations to this quite comprehensive document. Nevertheless, we would like to bring up some issues that could be added or reflected more clearly:
- As mentioned there exists a high uncertainty about the dimension of losses both in physical and in economic terms. Our overall quest remains: we do not really understand the economics of small holder families (composed of many households) in order to understand the rather high losses and the (non-)investment priorities of these economic units.
- In chapter 2.1.3 (last paragraph) the fact that cost of improved storage options as an obstacles for their adoption is pointed out. There are, however, examples were such technologies have been widely adopted and have had huge beneficial impact in poverty reduction and food security (see Fischler et al., 2011 or http://www.sdc-foodsecurity.ch/en/Home/Focus_areas/Post_harvest/document.php?itemID=9562&langID=1)
- In chapter 2.3.2 it says only: “In rural areas of developing countries, credit constraint is one of the primary bottlenecks in investment and adoption of technology to reduce food loss in whole food chain (HLPE, 2013b).” This is not enough. No mention about SACCOS or other forms of traditional credit schemes and their (potential) role or: why do they not lead to higher investments.
- In the concluding chapter 4 is stated: “The role played by women in the prevention of food losses and waste need immediate attention. Women play a key role in reducing food losses in developing countries and the challenges faced by 44 poor women in food loss reduction should be analyzed and documented.” We agree that these challenges need analysis and further understanding, not just within a household but within larger economic systems (“families”).
- In Africa, countries have committed to increasing investment in agriculture through CAADP framework and this is mentioned in the document. However, as it appears now, the focus is on increasing productivity. These countries need to increase their policy focus on preventing post-harvest loss as well. This dimension has to be given some more attention.
- The FAO (AGS), together with the other Rome-based agencies (IFAD and WFP) with support from Switzerland is in the process of establishing a global Community of Practice (CoP) on reducing food losses in particular at the postharvest stage in smallholder production systems. The CoP will include actors from governments, private sector, research, civil society as well as intergovernmental organizations. It will provide a platform for the exchange of knowledge and experiences on reducing food losses and facilitate concrete collaboration between different actors. We believe that this CoP will be an important complement to the in the report mentioned Centre of Excellence on postharvest food losses (Box 5). The CoP could also be instrumental in regard to several of the proposed recommendations, in particular recommendation 1.
15 Jan 2014
Government of SwitzerlandChristina Blank