Reducing On-Farm Food Losses
In the OIC Member Countries
10
on-farm food loss assessments in the OIC Member Countries, especially the recent studies
sponsored by the FAO, international institutions and organizations as well as any available
country-specific reports and analysis.
1.2.2 Key Informant Surveys and Interviews
The consultants conducted online and email-based surveys for collecting data on food losses and
on-farm food losses for all agricultural commodities from key informants selected from the 57
OIC Member Countries. Through the PEF, stakeholders were engaged by utilizing e-Forums and
e-network exchanges throughout the OIC Member Countries via online discussion groups. PEF
currently hosts a forum on Postharvest Training with more than 3,800 global members, many
of whom are postharvest experts and food loss reduction specialists located in institutions in
developing countries. Others are well known experts that work on agricultural projects.
Exchanges included dialogue on technologies that have been working effectively in their
respective environments to reduce on-farm losses, aswell as challenges and priorities for uptake
of these technologies on a larger scale.
The regional experts selected as key informants encompassed a wide range of research and
extension expertise and technical specialties, from engineering, food processing, postharvest
handling and pest management to socioeconomics and gender studies. The postharvest experts
invited to the online consultation meetings included representatives of the Arab, Asian and
African Groups as designated by the OIC.
Key informant surveys were sent via email during September and October 2015 to 100 people
in 50 OIC Member Countries. No experts with food loss expertise could be identified in Comoros,
Mauritania, Somalia, Brunei, Maldives, Suriname or Guinea-Bissau.
The key informant surveys were intended to gather expert opinion on food losses and on-farm
losses in their specific country. A unique scale was developed to force the key informants to
think about their local situation for each food group (see Annex A). As a result, the rating scale
did not match the FAO estimates, which are whole percentages of 20%, 35% or 45% losses,
depending on the food group. The FAO estimates were listed in the introduction to the survey
for reference, but effectively this scale represents perceived impact of losses on livelihoods.
Losses below 10% are tolerated.
The rating scale provided to the key informants is provided below:
 5 = very high (more than 50%)
 4 = high (30 to 50%)
 3 = moderate (10 to 30%)
 2 = low (5 to 10%)
 1 = very low (less than 5%)