The food security
challenges facing Africa has been attributed to defective supply chain as
produce raised on some fertile cropland, the shortest route to the richest
urban markets runs through another country, NaijaAgroNet reports.
Stephanie Gallatova,
who cited the continent’s bad roads, insanitary conditions and poor food stock
management as major problems, NaijaAgroNet gathered, said "The food
losses occurring in Africa are due to limitations in the various technological
and logistical factors in the food chain,"
Gallatova is an
agro-industries officer with the FAO Regional Office for Africa, which conducts
anti-food loss projects in more than a dozen West African countries. "We
are looking at the whole value chain and seeing what investments can be made to
reduce losses in a sustainable manner."
This geographic
reality, with its multiple logistical hurdles, illustrates the food security
challenges facing Senegal, for instance, and the wider West African
region.
The trouble with
feeding people here is not so much the availability of food but its
accessibility, adding, NaijaAgroNet learnt, that the difficulties
arise not just in agricultural production but also in inefficient food delivery
systems – in harvesting, storage, processing and transport.
In their 2014 Agricultural outlook report, the U.N. Food and Agriculture
Organization (FAO) and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and
Development (OECD) warned that food waste and losses represent a major threat
to global food security over the next ten years.
Cyriacus Nnaji/GEE
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