Reducing Postharvest Losses
In the OIC Member Countries
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6. POLICY RECOMMENDATIONS
This analysis has shown that the postharvest space as defined by the OIC Member Countries
suffers substantial quantitative and qualitative losses. Aggregation of these losses and
application of real economic values, though fraught with complexity and methodological
challenges, quickly produces large figures against which investment and the application of
scarce resources is an easy case to make. Differentiating between the cause of loss and who
within the postharvest space incurs cost of that loss has proven very hard for policy makers
and may explain why, to a large extent, the postharvest space has seen less investment that the
pre-harvest one. Notwithstanding, the application of small packets of resources (i.e., seed
money), promotion of a loss reducing culture and incentivisation of different sectors of
national agricultural economies across OIC Member Countries can, we believe, have substantial
short and long term benefits and impact.
The evidence would seem to suggest that a coordinated effort to consider infrastructure
investment from the point of view of its impact on postharvest losses has, to date, not been
feasible or considered. Development of both rural and urban infrastructure (e.g., roads,
markets and storage) and community assets (e.g., drying, storage, processing and
preservation) could be reconsidered with postharvest losses in mind.
At the level of individual or groups of OIC Member Countries, it would seem that no specific
policies on postharvest food losses exist. Postharvest losses are often mentioned in national
plans for agriculture, but the over-arching effort to identify projects or include activities in
funding streams is rather limited. One reason for this is that policy makers find it hard to
concretise the benefits of investment in reducing postharvest losses: measurement is difficult,
quantification of value is hard and identifying who captures the benefits is less certain than
other types of investments.
Considering the level of individual commodity chains or clusters, the issue of incentives to
develop better postharvest practices and invest in postharvest infrastructure would seem to
be key. It is common for agricultural value chains across OIC Member Countries to have
developed a least quality and low value ethos, with limited rejection of poor quality and
minimal investment in infrastructure by chain actors. This type of value chain tends to have
the highest postharvest losses, the risk and cost of which is usually born at the level of farm-
gate sales.
The real impacts of postharvest losses, are born by producers, in terms of lower prices, or by
consumers, in terms of higher prices or poorer quality food, including less nutrition, and
reduced food safety. Having identified this, the challenge faced by Member Countries is how to
develop a comprehensive policy framework for agricultural and agribusiness development
that identified and addresses postharvest losses.
6.1. General Recommendations
The prevalence of high postharvest losses across OIC Member Countries and throughout the
different commodity value chains analysed highlights the need for an urgent and systematic
review of policies that promote loss reduction.
In this regard, ten areas where action can reduce postharvest losses are as following: