MAFAP team takes part Ghana field mission to reduce food loss and waste in maize and rice

Two members of the Monitoring and Analysing Food and Agricultural Policies (MAFAP) team were part of field mission to Ghana by the FAO Investment Centre, FAO Ghana Office and the Ghanaian Ministry of Food and Agriculture to address food loss and waste (FLW) in the maize and rice value chains, two staple foods in the West African country.

Following a stakeholder consultation workshop in Accra, Renata Baborksa and Selina Agandaa joined the 5-day mission to Birim Central, Upper Manya in the Eastern Region, Ketu North, Afadjato and Hohoe in the Volta Region to collect quantitative and qualitative data on FLW in the value chains, meet with rice and maize farmers and stakeholders, and identify technologies or policy interventions that have a high potential to reduce FLW and for which business case investments will be presented to the government. 

Although on-farm losses are higher, FAO estimates that around 15% of all maize and rice produced is lost “off-farm”, meaning that loss and waste occurs after the harvesting by farmers and during several stages of the value chain, especially in the storage and milling stages. 

Among the key findings that the workshop and mission were:

• Rice millers receive low fees and therefore cannot afford to upgrade their machinery.  Therefore, a lot of the rice produced is transported as paddy (rice in its natural, unprocessed state).
• Sun drying is the most common process in the districts for both rice and maize, given that most farmers have limited access to powered drying equipment and owing to high operating costs for those that do have the drying machinery.
• Major losses for maize occur at the threshing process and in storage.

The mission, subsequent analysis of a cost-effective food loss and waste strategy by MAFAP, and business cases for agricultural investments by FAO’s Investment Centre, fall under the Government of Ghana’s broader objectives to provide greater capabilities to improve sustainable production and consumption of nutritious foods, and to provide smallholder farmers with greater access to, and service providers are better to extend, productive resources and services needed to improve rural wellbeing.  

A follow-up mission will take place in July and the ongoing analysis of data collection and consultations will lead to a validation workshop with stakeholders at the end of the year.

Check out pictures of the field mission on FAO Ghana’s Twitter.