Reducing Postharvest Losses

In the OIC Member Countries

OVERVIEW OF POSTHARVEST LOSSES IN THE OIC MEMBER

COUNTRIES

In this section the postharvest losses in the global context is explored first and secondly losses

in OIC Member Countries are explored.

2.1.

Overview of Postharvest Food Losses Globally

The proportion of postharvest food losses and waste of food and drink products in the

different commodity groups (cereals, roots and tubers, oilseeds and pulses, fruits and

vegetables, meat, dairy products, fish and seafood products) will differ according to a number

of factors. These factors will include the various regions world and within each region, there

will be large variations between specific value chains. This will be compounded by a number

of additional factors for example being whether the loss is physical, economic or nutritional,

whether the loss refers to the whole value chain or part of it and the method of estimation of

losses. Currently, the absence of quantitative data on losses in OIC Member Countries, or

globally, does not enable a valid comparison between the OIC Member Countries and the

information that exists for rest of the world.

The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) estimates that 32% of the

food produced in the world for human consumption every year (approximately 1.3 billion

tonnes) gets lost or wasted. In terms of economic value, food losses and waste amounts to

roughly US$680 billion in industrialized countries and US$310 billion in developing countries.

In terms of physical losses, industrialized and developing countries dissipate about the same

quantities of food being 670 and 630 million tonnes per annum respectively. The extent of the

global quantitative physical food losses and waste per year differ according to the food groups.

Fruits and vegetables, and roots and tubers have the highest wastage rates of any food at 40-

50%. For fish it is 35%, cereals 30% and 20% for oil seeds and pulses, meat and dairy

products. The amount of food lost or wasted every year is equivalent to more than half of the

world's annual cereals crop (2.3 billion tonnes in 2009/2010)

. The waste also varies per capita by consumers; 95-115 kg a

year in Europe and North America, and 6-11 kg per year for consumers in sub-Saharan Africa,

south and south-eastern Asia.

Gustavsson et al., 2011 estimates of percentages of food losses at five different stages in the

food supply chain being agriculture, postharvest, processing, distribution and consumption.

Using this date,

below indicates the postharvest losses using the OIC Member

Countries criteria of postharvest losses from farm gate to consumer for the commodity groups

and regions of the world.