Reducing On-Farm Food Losses
In the OIC Member Countries
4
INTRODUCTION
It is widely recognized that there are major losses of food along supply chains all over the world
(Koester et al 2013). The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) estimates that roughly one-
third of the annual global food production, which equalled 1.3 billion tonnes of food in 2009, is
lost in the supply chain before reaching the final consumer. This means that huge amounts of
resources such as seeds, labour, land, water, fertilizer and energy are used during agricultural
production and then lost during the food supply chain. The new Sustainable Development Goals
(SDGs) adopted by the United Nation member countries in September 2015 include Goal 12
(sustainable production and consumption) and Target 12.3 which calls for the world to cut per
capita food wastage in half by 2030 (United Nations, 2015). Similarly, the African Union heads
of state and government promised in June 2014 to end hunger and halve the current post-
harvest food losses by 2025.
According to the general definitions provided by the FAO and the World Resources Institute
(WRI), food losses refer to pre-consumer stage losses which are namely production, postharvest
handling, storage, processing, and distribution. The food losses caused by consumers are called
food waste, which occurs toward the end of the food chain during retail marketing, food service
and home consumption.
The research commissioned by FAO in 2011 for INTERPACK and carried out by the Swedish
Institute for Food and Biotechnology (SIK) noted that food losses in developing countries occur
mainly during the early and middle phases of the crop production cycle and can be traced to
technical limitations of agricultural producers during the harvesting and pre-harvesting period.
Developing country food loss occurs mostly during the production, handling, storage and
processing periods, whereas in developed countries foods are wasted at the consumer level.
Most of the Organization for Islamic Cooperation (OIC) Member Countries are defined as
developing countries, and so it is likely that high losses occur during on-farm (including harvest)
and postharvest (handling, storage, processing, packaging, transportation, distribution, and
marketing) stages.
The pattern and size of food losses and waste throughout the food supply chain remains poorly
understood for the vast majority of the OIC Member Countries, which include a high diversity of
counties. Most farmers in these countries live on the margins of food insecurity, and a reduction
in food losses could have an immediate and significant impact on their livelihoods.
In this analytical study, the losses that occur at the initial stages on the farm were examined in
the OIC Member Countries. Therefore, postharvest losses and food waste (consumption stages)
are not included in this study. The overall objective of the study is to contribute to increasing the
productivity of the agriculture sector and to sustaining the food security in the OIC Member
Countries by reducing on-farm food losses. The definitions and causes of such losses vary
according to the type of agricultural commodities.