Failure To Tackle Global Hunger Lies In The Failure To Better Manage ‘Post Harvest Loss’


08/28/2018

Even though, the agricultural yields have seen a growth, the population of the world are still left hungry while food gets wasted before it is reaches the consumers.


Dailycsr.com – 28 August 2018 – People around the world are still battling with hunger even though “agricultural yields” have increased in past decades in “less-industrialized regions of the world”. The increment was possible with the support of various “international agencies” like “USAID, The Rockefeller Foundation, and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation”. Nevertheless, hunger still persists.
 
The “Famine Early Warning Systems Network” reported that there was been an increment of production in food over the last five years time. This growing trend is observed all over the globe. So, if enough food is produced for the global population, the question arise that why “does food security remain so elusive?”
 
According to PYXERA Global the crux of the matter of food insecurity stems in the supply chain, especially when it comes to slashing down the food wastage in the form of contamination or rotting before it can reach the consumers, otherwise termed as “post-harvest loss”.
 
The PYXERA Global reports that:
“According to the FAO and USAID, up to 50 percent of all food produced in low-income countries is lost due to improper handling and storage. The magnitude of this loss is alarming, especially in light of increasing food insecurity due to population growth, forced migration, and climate change. Many populations now rely on food aid, originally intended for emergency famine relief. Rather than treating the symptoms of the problem, however, the long-term solution requires an intimate understanding of the issue at a systems level”.
 
Traditionally, to balance the demand and production, the farmers were “encouraged to increase crop and livestock yields”. However, this turns out to be “a destructive, unsustainable strategy”. In fact, with the increment of food production increases “land conversion and water use” which brings one to “important social and environmental tradeoffs”. The expansion of arable lands is an added strain to the “limited resources in many countries”.
 
Furthermore, “growing the size of livestock populations” also “deteriorates land with a compounded impact of greenhouse gas emissions”. For further information, kindly visit:
https://www.pyxeraglobal.org/raising-agrifood-yields-not-enough-achieve-global-food-security/
 
 
References:
3blmedia.com