Reducing Postharvest Losses
In the OIC Member Countries
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 Roots handled gently to minimize bruising and breaking of the skin during loading and
off-loading along with appropriate supervision
 Farmers associations collectively hiring vehicles for transportation
 Involvement of cassava processor and collector associations; especially women
 Processing cassava close to the farms to minimise handling and reduce delays
 Pack processed products in polyethylene packs where feasible to reduce losses and
shelf-life
 Availability of shelters in the open markets
Oguntade 2013 in a different study reported that cassava farmers in Nigeria indicated that the
most significant losses occurred during harvest (4.95%), due to inappropriate harvesting
technologies (machetes) and poor soil conditions (dry and stony). The main challenges for
gari processors were that tubers were too small (5.8%) and too woody (4.1%), as these could
not be peeled correctly and were thrown away. The main reasons for losses of gari were at the
marketing level due to moisture (4.5%) and rodents (2.5%) during storage, whereas
transportation accounts for around 2.5% of losses. Losses were negligible when gari was
processed for home consumption at the farm level. Improved cassava peeling technology was
suggested as a way to reduce postharvest physical losses.
Losses during starch production (Oguntade 2013) was also reported. Starch production is a
growing but till minor cassava product in Nigeria were also significant, amounting to nearly
12%. The most significant losses occurred during processing of tubers (5.5%) and during
storage of starch (6.3%).
Other losses reported by FAO tend to be higher at 50-60% and are not specific to any
particular country of stages in the value chain.
Economic losses
There are few publications that focus on the analysis of postharvest losses of cassava in
Nigeria. Of these publications, we refer to two publications being Naziri et al., 2014 and
Oguntade 2013 which estimated economic losses and the stages in the value chain where these
occur.
Naziri et al, 2014 reported that fresh roots were sold at a discounted price because they were
either broken or partially spoiled. It was estimated that between 10% and 30% of roots suffer
economic losses on farm due either to breakages during the harvest or quality decrease when
delays in transport occurred. An additional 2% of roots incur economic losses, mainly due to
breakages, during the transport to the gari and fufu processing sites. This meant that in the
gari and fufu sub-chains around 20% of roots were sold at discounted prices. No economic
losses are incurred by the own-consumption sub-value chain since the fresh roots are not
traded.
An indicative value of these losses for South-West Nigeria was estimated at over US$ 50
million per year, representing around 7% of the current retail value. Oguntade 2013
extrapolated physical losses to the whole of Nigeria indicates that they were significant in
both, gari and starch value chains. The total sum of monetary losses of cassava at the farm gate
and during processing, storage, transport and marketing amounted to EUR 686 million.