New paper: Addressing postharvest losses in cassava value chains

A recently published paper on PHL in the cassava value chains, which compares the situations of different cassava–producing countries such as Ghana, Nigeria, Thailand and Vietnam, has been discussed by the CoP moderator with Diego Naziri, a scientist seconded by the Natural Resources Institute (NRI) to the International Potato Center (CIP) and lead author.

The paper is a result of a multi-disciplinary research conducted to assess losses in different countries. In line with the topic of a current discussion on going in the CoP Forum on PHL assessments, Naziri highlighted that “in this paper we have made a clear distinction between physical, economic and monetary losses. According to our definitions, physical losses refer to fresh or processed cassava products that disappear or are damaged to the point that have to be thrown away at any of the stage of the value chain. Economic losses refer to products that have incurred quality deterioration to the point that either their market price is discounted or cannot be used for what they were initially meant (e.g. damaged roots processed into lower value products). Therefore economic losses, unlike physical ones, have residual value or alternative uses. Since the major problem is the deterioration of the root we have assumed that only fresh cassava incurs economic losses. Finally, with monetary value of PHL, we refer to the financial loss due to either physical or economic losses”. The lead author has also made clear that in order to estimate these economic losses “we have interacted with the different value chain actors and identified the average proportion of cassava roots that is sold at discounted price or processed into value products due quality deterioration”.

The paper is based on a comparative analysis of four countries in Asia and Africa, very diverse in terms of contexts and economic realities. Naziri stated that “one of the most interesting findings is related to the stage of the value chain where most PHL occur. There is great diversity among different countries: in Ghana most losses occur at the final stage of the value chain, in Thailand on farm while in Nigeria and Vietnam at the processing stage. We also found that poorer countries have the ability to reduce the economic impact of PHL by transforming part of the physical losses into economic losses (with a residual value). In fact the same degree of damage can have different implications from country to country: for instance, broken or partially spoiled roots that are rejected in South-East Asia because not meeting the industry specification (physical losses) are sold at discounted price or processed into lower value products in the SSA countries (economic losses). In this case, it is worth noticing that the monetary losses are not only function of the magnitude of the quality deterioration but also of the stringency of the buyer’s standards and the price setting mechanism in place at each stage of the value chain”.

The paper published in the Journal of Agriculture and Rural Development in the Tropics and Subtropics, is available here. 

Any reader interested in this topic and wiling to comment further is welcome to leave a post in the CoP Forum.