Reducing On-Farm Food Losses
In the OIC Member Countries
96
Table 4.1: The Range of Yields for Key Crops Produced in the OIC Member Countries
Crop Yields Nigeria Uganda Egypt Turkey Indonesia OIC
Average*
World
Average
Maize 2.0 2.4 7.8 8.9 4.8 5.2 5.5
Sweetpotatoes 3.1 4.7 32.2 - 14.7 11.2 12.6
Cassava 13.9 12.0 - - 22.4 16.1 13.6
Groundnuts 1.3 0.7 3.2 3.5 2.6 2.3 1.8
Tomatoes 5.7 5.8 40 38.0 17.5 13,4 34.7
Plantains 6.2 5.4 - - - 5.8 6.9
Source: FAOSTAT.
*Average of the Listed Countries.
Key informants were asked to provide information on the causes of losses for each food group.
Potential on-farm related causes were listed in detail (the first 11 choices in a list of 18), so key
informants could identify or add other possible causes of food losses for the food groups for
which they held expertise.
4.1.1 Cereals
When key informants in each of the Arab, Asian and African Group countries were asked about
important on-farm causes of losses for cereals they indicated that eight or more causes were
important, with a wide range of poor practices and issues cited. For the Arab Group, pests on the
farmwas indicated by 14 of the 17 key informants. For the Asian Group, 19 of 22 key informants
highlighted pests on the farm and 18 of 22 cited poor quality containers and sacks. For the
African Group, 10 of the 11 on-farm line items were cited by more than 50% of the key
informants.
The majority of key informants indicated that there were several other causes of losses for
cereals, including lack of storage, processing, infrastructure and marketing options. For less
perishable crops like cereals, these are commonly found causes of losses. Very few of the key
informants mentioned delays in transport or temperature management as problems. A key
informant from UAE reported “decoration waste” as a cause of cereals losses.
A key informant in Syria reported that there are additional food losses resulting from the
ongoing fighting in Syria, which raises the rate of food losses to a high rates more than 50% due
to:
 Fires in cereal crops;
 Road damage and highway outages;
 Inability to access wide areas planted with various crops; and
 Lack of electricity, seeds, fertilizer and pesticides.