Posted on March, 29, 2019 at 10:58 am
Food production must clearly increase significantly to meet the future demands of an increasing and more affluent world population.
Considering the number of people starving worldwide – 925 million in 2011 – and the growing population – 9 billion people by 2050 – the subject of food losses and waste has become one of utmost concern.
Is Africa prepared to face this challenge? Chris Muyunda, Chairman of the Governing Council of CAADP Non State Actors had an interview with The Guardian during a continental meeting to train African Union (AU) member states on how to report on the progress made in the Malabo Declaration held in Accra, Ghana.
Q.What do we mean by “food losses and waste losses”? Is there a convergence in the International community on how these concepts/problems should be defined? Both Food Loss and Food Waste are major global problems.
Generally speaking, Food Loss is associated with the developing World and Food Waste occurs in wealthier countries. Food Loss occurs in the Agricultural Value Chain, mainly in developing countries, due to poor post harvest facilities such as storage, transportation, processing and marketing.
On the other hand, Food Waste refers to unused production due to various reasons such as lack of demand in the market or due to oversupply or due to the existence of other food alternatives/substitutes.
Q.In Europe the emphasis is definitely on “waste losses”, while in Africa prevails the notion linked to “food losses”, with special reference to the post-harvest phase. Heavy losses are accounted for even before harvesting, with very serious consequences upon the yield of cultivated land.
As an expert, what lessons is it possible to draw from the techniques that have been applied so far to minimize post-harvest losses and which are, in your opinion, the weak points?
Yes, we in Africa are heavily concerned with Food Losses. It is important for the continent to prioritize Post Harvest investments. There are serious social and economic lmpacts resulting from food losses. In particular, when food is lost, we have to rely on imports to feed people.
Over the years, it has been estimated Africa spends close to USD50 billion in food imports annually. Whereas some imports may be necessary, the import figure could be significantly lower if we managed our post harvest activities and investments better on the continent.
Q.Another problem that strikes quite hard the agricultural producers in Africa concerns the conservation and the transformation of harvested goods. Could you mention actions and initiatives that you believe that have had positive outcomes for African countries where you worked?
Just like increasing agricultural productivity, post harvest management should be a major area of focus of African Governments in their National Agricultural Investment Plans (NAIPs) under the Comprehensive Africa Agricultural Development Programme (CAADP).
The process of formulating appropriate NAIPs at the country level allows governments, farmers and the private sector to agree on key actions in research, food security, transformation, trade and marketing which are critical to ensuring a competitive agribusiness sector for a given country.
More than ever before, public-private partnerships are key for a viable and sustainable agricultural sector. Neither the government nor the private can deliver everything on their own.
Collaborative partnership on an agreed plan is key. We therefore strong recommend a healthy partnership where governments, private sector and civil society are working together in an inclusive and transparent fashion to deliver on the important commitments already agreed at the Heads of State level. In this effort, women and the youth should not be left behind.
Q.Among food experts there are those who maintain that large quantities of food that are wasted and squandered in Western countries could be used to decrease the alimentary shortages that afflict so many people in Africa. What is your opinion on this approach?
Africa has excellent agricultural land and quality water resources to feed itself. The priority in Africa should be to implement CAADP. Africa has no business asking for food from outside its shores. We have enough natural resources to feed everyone on the continent. Our priority should be on implementation.
Q.Lack of comprehensive African strategy to reduce food loss remains to be a major challenge for solid cooperation between African countries. What do you think are the major roadblocks towards a comprehensive African food loss management strategy?
The Food losses in Africa are quite well documented at this stage. The solutions are also fairly well articulated. The gap is in implementation.
If you look at the first Biennial Review of CAADP, of the 47 countries that submitted their BR reports, only 20 countries were on track of implementing their CAADP commitments.
Twenty Seven (27) were not on track. In fact, an even bigger number of countries were not a track on the commitment of tripling intra regional trade in agricultural goods.
We are not trading with one another in Africa. We need to remove the remaining roadblocks (both infrastructural and procedural) to trade among ourselves as part of overall strategy to reducing food losses.
Q.Post-harvest loss contributes the largest share of total food-loss in most African countries. It, in turn, is defined by the poor transport and storage technology used by farmers. Why do you think is there little investment in such kinds of technologies, if the demand is there?
It is a matter policy. Governments need to critically look at the impediments holding back investments in downstream agro-processing and prioritize improvements in rural infrastructure.
All investors, including local investors, are risk averse. Governments must work to reduce risks of investments in value addition and the business community will therefore invest in this important stage of the value chain.
Q.In Africa, farmers, stockbreeders, hunters and fishermen are continuously confronted by the problem of losses because they often use archaic food conservation techniques, such as old drying processes, smocking, etc. Do you think that International organizations such do enough to face this problem?
The food losses problem is an African problem. Africans must prioritize solving it. Development partners can assist based on our own clear plans to deal with it.
There is a lot of expertise in the UN agencies and bilateral development organizations to help. But the leadership should come from us. The NAIPs are a good starting point. Based on our plans, we can rally everyone to help.
Q.Besides technological impediments and handicaps, all over the African continent food losses are made even worse by armed conflicts, long periods of drought and the geographic isolation of many African countries that have no access points to the sea.
What strategies should be adopted to overcome these problems and, on a more general level, to guarantee food self-sufficiency in Africa?
The African Union must continue to implement its various development programmes in all areas with renewed vigour. There has definitely been a lot of progress but more needs to be done in peace building and implementation of socio-economic programmes.
Clearly, the CAADP is one the greatest instruments Africa has to overcome many problems such as hunger and grinding poverty. A hungry man is an angry man.
The way to overcome hunger is through development of agriculture. So, CAADP should be a priority of all countries and governments, non state actors and development partners ought to form a strong ongoing alliance on that front and the results will follow.
Source: IPP Media