Global Forum on Food Security and Nutrition (FSN Forum)

Jane Ambuko

University of Nairobi
Kenya
  1. Under Recommendations - bullet 2 (potential for reduction for food waste, and by what means (technical and policy tools, information etc), taking into account regional and product specificities, as well as actions at different levels)
  2. My contribution 
      • Perishable food commodities including fruits and vegetables where high food losses from the production to the retail/consumer level occur, there are various interventions which would significantly reduce the losses. Some of the interventions/practices to minimize losses include
        • 1) Better production/agronomic practices to ensure produce of high quality potential at harvest
        • 2) Good harvest practices including right harvest maturity + harvest time, careful harvesting to minimize mechanical damage
        • 3) Good postharvest handling practices such as grading, shading, sanitization, cooling
        • 4) Better packaging for transportation to distant markets
        • 5) Maintaining a cold chain from harvest to marketing
        • 6) Application of some of the tested applicable postharvest technologies that have been used n developed countries to successfully reduce postharvest losses to below 10% compared to 40-50% in the developing countries
        • *Most of the proposed interventions above simply require capacity building for the producers (farmers) through various methods such as field days, workshops, farmer field schools