AFRICA AGRICULTURE STATUS REPORT 2016

Reducing post-harvest losses
FAO estimates from 2011 suggest that as much as 37
percent of food produced in SSA is lost between production
and consumption. Estimates for cereals are 20.5 percent.
For post-harvest handling and storage loss only, the FAO
estimate is 8 percent, and the African Post-harvest Losses
Information System (APHLIS) estimate is 10–12 percent
(World Bank, 2015). The challenge of having reliable
statistics in Africa is well known. Whether more credit
should be given to the FAO estimates or to those of APHLIS
should not shift attention from the core issue that remains:
even from rapid empirical observations a considerable
amount of the food produced perishes before it reaches the
consumers’ tables. The onus is therefore on policy makers to
work towards reducing post-harvest losses. Nutrient dense
foods could benefit from deliberate efforts to reduce postharvest
losses, especially as it stills looks feasible for Africa
as a whole, to meet the food and nutrition security target.
Among other transformative measures, some deliberate
efforts need to be set in motion to expand the infrastructure
capacity to preserve highly perishable foods such as fruits
and vegetables. More research is needed to develop low
cost food preservation technologies that small-scale rural
farmers can use on farm to reduce food loss due to spoilage
and to improve the shelf-life of their produce.
Investing resources to make it happen
Achieving food security and nutrition for SSA will only
materialize if a set of measures are put in place. These
include matching the level of required investments in
research, with the need to prolong the shelf-life of such
foods, as a contribution towards addressing the disconnect
between what gets produced, what is consumed, and
the nutritious value it ensures. Indeed, when agricultural
investments seek to integrate nutrition-sensitive
interventions, appropriate approaches and impact pathways
are often unknown or results are often not measured
robustly enough. For example, household income is crucial
in determining access to sufficient quantities of a diverse
range of food for adequate nutrition. However, initiatives
to develop food value chain should seriously question
whether increasing income will be sufficient to address
food and nutrition security challenges or whether other
interventions will also be required. Research indicates that
while increased household income does tend to improve
caloric intake, it does not necessarily improve nutrition
(Fan & Brzeska, 2011). The agricultural income pathway
is not linear and is affected by the characteristics of food
markets (e.g., the availability and affordability); the extent
to which women and men are differentially empowered
to make decisions about household food purchases;
and knowledge and social norms that reinforce the use
of income on goods and health investments that benefit
nutrition. Income generation can have a positive, negative,
or neutral effect on nutrition within agricultural projects .
Agricultural food systems and nutrition are fragmented,
thereby affecting choices for nutrient dense foods and
compounding the undernutrition challenge. A transformed
and diversified agricultural production system is necessary
to influence the delivery of optimum diets to rural and
urban populations. This is an area where more research
efforts and findings will help inform the structural changes
required at all levels in the chains of transformative actions.
Key Messages: Transformation Enablers
and Drivers
To end hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition
and promote sustainable agriculture, urgent actions are
required to sustain some of the gains shown here to truly
drive the agricultural transformation needed for Africa’s
development and to ensure a better life for all its people
as laid out in the Malabo Declaration and the SDGs. The
following are the key messages:
• Value Chain Approach: Food value chains have
recently been identified as a potential route through
which agriculture can benefit nutrition (Ruel & Alderman,
2013). Value chain and marketing strategies which
usually target farmers, producers and retailers with
sufficient assets for them to invest, produce at scale
and be more competitive, can contribute to nutritionsensitive
agriculture and yield nutritional benefits both
for food suppliers—primary producers, processors and
retailers—and consumers.
• Multi-sectoral Approach: There is indeed a noted
divide resulting in single sector approaches which
militate against achievement of food and nutrition
security goals. Malnutrition is better addressed through
a multi-sectoral approach involving agriculture, nutrition,
gender, health, water and sanitation, and education.
• Monitoring and Evaluation of Impact: The link
between agricultural investments and nutritional
outcomes has not been robustly demonstrated. As
part of much required agricultural transformation, (i)
the evidence base of agriculture investments which
have had positive nutritional or health impact should be
strong; (ii) systematic impact assessment of investments
should be sizable; and (iii) impact assessment studies
should be designed and implemented as scalable pilots,
and should take into account the impact pathways and
the barriers inherent in them.
242 AFRICA AGRICULTURE STATUS REPORT 2016