Housing over 120 million populations, as a second-most populous country in Africa, Ethiopia’s economy and income and livelihood of the majority of its population depends on agriculture. The sector, as is the case in most African countries, still remains the backbone of the economy of the nation.
Ethiopia has been working from dawn to dusk with a view to enhancing agricultural production, augmenting productivity, ensuring food and nutrition security, sustaining a raw material supply for the agro-industry, manufacturing, among others.
However, the high magnitude of post-harvest losses and other socio-economic problems contribute to the nation’s continued food and nutrition insecurity. This trend has to be well averted via devising a range of solutions to a number of problems, of course.
Keeping this in mind, The Ethiopian Herald conducted an exclusive interview with Segni Bekele, senior agriculturalist graduated from Arba-Minch University, to solicit information about Ethiopian agricultural production and the challenges facing the sector especially during harvest and post-harvest seasons.
He said, “Ministry of Agriculture has recently developed the National Post-harvest Management Strategy, which predominantly focuses on three commodity groups: grain crops, horticulture crops, and animal source foods. The strategy comprises six strategic objectives with critical interventions aimed at reducing post harvest loss and mitigating the prevailing food shortage across the nation.”
However, in due course of harvesting crops, there should be great care during harvest and post-harvest seasons so as to prevent huge loss of crops, and the effective execution of the post harvest strategy, with the cooperation and commitment of all relevant parties, can help reduce crop loss, he added.
“In agriculture, post-harvest handling is the stage of crop production immediately following harvest, including cooling, cleaning, sorting and packing. The instant a crop is removed from the ground, or separated from its parent plant, it begins to deteriorate. Post-harvest treatment largely determines final quality, whether a crop is sold for fresh consumption, or used as an ingredient in a processed food product,” he opined.
Yes, he said applying post-harvest technology targets at maintaining quality like appearance, texture, flavor and nutritive value of fruits and vegetables, protecting food safety and reducing losses between harvest and consumption. Effective management during the post-harvest period, rather than the level of sophistication of any given technology, is the key in reaching the desired objectives.
According to Segni, as simple, low cost technologies often can be more appropriate for small volume, limited resource commercial operations, farmers involved in direct marketing, as well as for suppliers to exporters in the nation.
As to him, the methods may not be sustainable over the long term, due to socio-economic, cultural and/or environmental concerns. For example, the use of post-harvest pesticides may reduce the incidence of surface defects but can be costly both in terms of money and environmental consequences. In addition, the growing demand for organically produced fruits and vegetables offers new opportunities for small-scale producers and marketers.
The local conditions for small-scale handlers like lack of credit for investments in post-harvest technology, unreliable electric power supply, lack of transport options, storage facilities and/or packaging materials, have to be well addressed to avoid crop harvest loss.
Many of the practices included in the manual have successfully been used to reduce losses and maintain produce quality of crops, but these ways have to be well backed by modern ways, he opined.
There are many interacting steps involved in any post-harvest system. Produce is often handled by many different people, transported and stored repeatedly between harvest and consumption. While particular practices and the sequence of operations will vary for each crop, there is a general series of steps in post-harvest handling systems that will be followed for the purposes of the manual.
He further elucidated that in agriculture, post-harvest handling is the stage of crop production immediately following harvest like field handling, transporting to packing house, operations at the packing house, cleaning, and sorting/grading – packaging or storage.
To meet deficit post-harvest losses have to be reduced. This means that post-harvest management is one of the critical issues. Post-harvest management is of course he said a system of handling, storing, and transporting agricultural commodities after harvest. For some commodities such as coffee, post-harvest activities may include drying and fermenting as well.
Moreover, post-harvest management allows the effective planning of how to sustainably manage finite resources for the future. In other words, through effective post-harvest management, action can be done now so that the environment can sustain future generations.
During the post-harvest period, handlers and producers focus on preserving quality, quantity, and the safety of the commodities. Smallholders usually work with limited resources like manpower, financing, inputs, and others.
Here, he added as lack of infrastructure, proper knowledge and the right technology can hugely affect yield and, resulting from this, income, such a prime hurdle has to be well dealt with. Investments on seeds, fertilizers, and other important pre-harvest inputs can go to waste if post-harvest handling is not done properly.
As to him, a single year’s poor harvest can amount to a loss of decades’ worth of savings. This can be avoided by placing secure and reliable post-harvest systems. Financial support from both non-governmental organizations and governmental bodies can also be provided to operators with relevant support to help them have a successful and sustainable production and productivity.
He added thanks to new ideas and solutions, technology and innovative techniques are helping agricultural sector operators—the farming community in brief—brings down post-harvest losses.
Closely monitoring commodities during storage can also greatly aid in making sure that they are protected. True, almost all crops require a stable system of pre-and post harvest operations and utilization. However, no or little emphasis is given to such lucrative ways, which needs to be reversed.
It is essential that the pre-and post production systems need to be well strengthened to help producers have benefit they deserve and it can be possible to feed more people by reducing losses due to post harvest handling problems, he underlined.
He added that apparently, it is possible to reduce loss of the produce during harvesting, threshing, cleaning, transporting, storage and preparation as human consumption and as animal feed by taking care of all steps.
Undeniably, he said Ethiopia is in the process of building an inclusive economic system that aims to ensure the prosperity of its people. The Government plays a crucial role in achieving this by facilitating the fair distribution of wealth and intervening in strategic areas while adhering to the principles of a market-led economy.
One of the key objectives of the government’s strategic plan is to industrialize the nation’s agriculture, making it less reliant on traditional practices focused on exports and reducing imports. This approach places particular emphasis on generating employment opportunities, enhancing food and nutrition security, and promoting agro-industrial development.
As a follow up of the endorsement of the strategy, the Ethiopian government has deployed post-harvest management specialists to federal, regional and district level of administration to stem out the technical challenges of food losses.
“Minimization of post-harvest losses of crops could be achieved through a holistic approach by providing short and long-term training on post-harvest management practices, promoting the use of post-harvest technologies, paying special attention to the institutional support systems like agriculture extension and rural credit services, strengthening the support for post-harvest handling technologies, reinforcing the existing farmer cooperative marketing, and improvements of the local market and road networking infrastructures of rural areas should be undertaken by the government in collaboration with non-government organizations, development partners and even the farming community,” he said.
According to Segni, reduction of post-harvest losses of crops between farm and market is crucial task to minimize the food gaps thereby ensuring food and nutrition security in Ethiopia. However, a lack of understanding of the extent and associated contributing factors are posing major challenges for the effective implementation of grain post-harvest loss management strategies and to scale up for all other crop types.
In a nut shell, a post-harvest loss contributes to the reduction of food supply and, hence, leads to high food prices in the market and thereby aggravating the food insecurity situation in the country. The main reasons of post-harvest loss among others is inherent weaknesses in post-harvest handling techniques due to the poor management practices, lack of infrastructure and appropriate equipments and limited access to market. In response to this, a number of cost effective post-harvest handling management techniques and technologies are introduced by government in collaboration with development partners.
Therefore, the reduction of post-harvest losses of all crops could be considered as a viable strategy for improving livelihoods of farmers and releasing the pressure on the environment.
BY MENGESHA AMARE
THE ETHIOPIAN HERALD THURSDAY 24 OCTOBER 2024
