Postharvest losses and waste in developed and less developed countries: opportunities to improve resource use

TLDR

Postharvest food losses differ between developed and less developed countries, occurring mainly after the farm gate in the former and before the gate in the latter, and reducing these losses can increase food availability and support rural development and poverty reduction. Reducing postharvest losses is driven in developed countries by consumer education, targeted taxation, and public‑private partnerships, whereas in less developed countries it relies on farmer education, improved infrastructure, value‑chain incentives, collective marketing, technology adoption, and shared investment. The review anticipates that by 2030, drivers for reducing postharvest losses will differ between developed and less developed countries.

Abstract

SUMMARY This review compares and contrasts postharvest food losses (PHLs) and waste in developed countries (especially the USA and the UK) with those in less developed countries (LDCs), especially the case of cereals in sub-Saharan Africa. Reducing food losses offers an important way of increasing food availability without requiring additional production resources, and in LDCs it can contribute to rural development and poverty reduction by improving agribusiness livelihoods. The critical factors governing PHLs and food waste are mostly after the farm gate in developed countries but before the farm gate in LDCs. In the foreseeable future (e.g. up to 2030), the main drivers for reducing PHLs differ: in the developed world, they include consumer education campaigns, carefully targeted taxation and private and public sector partnerships sharing the responsibility for loss reduction. The LDCs’ drivers include more widespread education of farmers in the causes of PHLs; better infrastructure to connect smallholders to markets; more effective value chains that provide sufficient financial incentives at the producer level; opportunities to adopt collective marketing and better technologies supported by access to microcredit; and the public and private sectors sharing the investment costs and risks in market-orientated interventions.