Food technologists at the Food and Agriculture
Organisation (FAO) have developed tools and methodologies for identifying
losses, their causes and potential solutions along the entire food value chain,
from production, storage and processing to distribution and consumption,
reports NaijaAgroNet.
Obviously reacting to the latest United
Nations disclosure that some 815 million hungry people are in the world, the majority
lives in rural areas of developing countries and are family farmers,
pastoralists or fishers, these experts cited South-East Asia, for example, noting
that fruit and vegetable producers found that around 20 per cent of tomatoes
were damaged during transportation because of the way they were packed in bulk.
According to DG, FAO, Mr. José Graziano da
Silva, the initiatives will improve packaging practices, they said, with the
participation of producers and other stakeholders, resulted in an impressive 90
per cent reduction of these losses.
NaijaAgroNet
reports that in 2013, FAO launched a global initiative on food loss and waste
called Save
Food.
The platform, NaijaAgroNet gathered, includes a
network of over 500 partners from international organizations, the private
sector, civil society and others with the objective of promoting awareness and
the exchange of ideas and best practices on preventing food waste and loss.
FAO also said, it has produced data and
information so that decision-makers could better understand where and how food
losses and waste occur, and the agency is working with partners to measure the
impact of food loss and waste reductions on food security and nutrition.
Isaac Oyimah/GEE
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