Reducing Postharvest Losses
In the OIC Member Countries
19
based in each country. The data for each crop can be looked at by year and down to the
provincial level in each country.
Data extracted from APHLIS has been used to summarise cereal postharvest loss levels and
quantities for 19 of the African Member Countries of the OIC in In these 19 African OIC
Member Countries alone, postharvest losses of 6,655,727 tonnes of five cereal grains occurred
in 2012. This is food that could have been used to feed citizens and drive economic activity, it
is a waste of the valuable resources (land, water, labour and inputs) used to produce it. The
‘Missing Food’ study estimated that 13.5% of the grain produced across sub-Saharan Africa is
then lost postharvest, this is equivalent to US$4 billion per year or the annual caloric
requirement of 48 million people (World Bank, NRI, FAO, 2011). Climatic changes (CC) in
temperature, rainfall, humidity, extreme events plus natural and human responses to CC and
variability will affect postharvest systems and are likely to increase PHL unless changes are
made (Stathers et al., 2013).
Table 2: APHLIS data on postharvest losses for focal African OIC Member Countries
Country % postharvest loss - estimates of %
cumulative weight loss (a)
Quantity (tonnes) of annual postharvest loss
Maize Rice Wheat SorghumMillet Maize Rice Wheat Sorghum Millet
Benin 25 24 24 14 - 235,516 26,794 26,794 23,034 -
Burkina
Faso
18 14 14 12 10 273,550 44,553 44,553 230,687 111,057
Cameroon 22 11** 12** 350,779 17,153** 6,229**
Chad 17 12 12 12 9. 52,279 20,381 20,381 79,754 30,070
Côte d'Ivoire 18*** 12*** 12*** 11*** 95,700*** 72,236*** 4,265*** 4,233***
Gambia 18*** 12* 12* 12* 11* 3,550*** 4,680* 4,680* 2,435* 5,019*
Guinea 16 11 11 11 102,559 220,837 220,837 28,099
Guinea-
Bissau
18 12 12 12 11 1,475 23,653 23,653 2,983 1,947
Mali 18 11 11 12 8 241,910 105,870 100,809 138,512 138,180
Mauritania 17 11 11 12 9 1,395 20,324 20,324 3,268 155
Mozambique 19 12*** 13*** 11*** 296,199 23,170*** 43,897*** 4,879***
Niger 17 11 11 12 9 1,496 10,080 10,080 167,922 332,889
Nigeria 18 12 12 12 10**** 131,815 43,575 43,575 183,788 187,579****
Senegal 20 14 14 13 14 24,648 60,542 60,542 11,512 69,531
Sierra Leone 24 21 21 13,401 295,530 295,530
Somalia 24 11 11 12 11,952 153 153 10,580
South Sudan 17 10,054
Sudan 12*** 9*** 84,736*** 1,512***
Togo 31 23 23 23 11 253,718 37,496 37,496 57,330 2,889
Uganda 20 15 15 13 13* 507,541 30,497 27,617 47,095 35,576*
Mean % PHL 20 14 14 13 10.3
Annual PHL
(t)
2,609,537 944,965 1,049,583 1,126,126 925,516
Notes:
Data from the year 2012, with the exception of cells marked ****= 2006, ***= 2007, **= 2010, *= 2011
“-“ = no data
(a) Losses incurred during harvesting, drying, handling operations, farm storage, transport and market storage
Source: APHLIS, 201