Africa's Food Waste

Food waste in Africa and other developing nations is an entirely different problem than it is in developed regions. In developing regions, often the biggest chunk of food loss — more than 40 percent — occurs during the post-harvest phase, according to a 2011 U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) report. But in developed regions, the biggest chunk — again more than 40 percent — occurs at the retail and consumer levels.

Across sub-Saharan Africa, more than a third of fruits, vegetables, roots, and tubers are lost by the time they are processed or packaged, according to the FAO report, the most recent comprehensive estimate available. More precise estimates vary from year to year and from country to country. In Kenya, pests destroy up to 30 percent of all maize harvested — a total loss of about 162 million tons, according to the government-run Kenya Agricultural Research Institute. Ghana, meanwhile, loses up to 50 percent of its main crops of vegetables, fruits, cereals, roots, and tubers, said Joe Oteng-Adjei, the country's Minister for Environment, Science, Technology and Innovation, according to the news service GhanaWeb.

Like much of sub-Saharan Africa, Tanzania produces all kinds of food for local consumption as well as export. Yet here, in the part of the world that can arguably least afford to waste food, a good portion of these crops are lost. Much of the loss happens before the food can be eaten, during the so-called "post-harvest" phase between harvest and the point of sale or consumption. The problem is that the equipment and methods that many small-scale farmers use to process and store their crops are inadequate, so months after the harvest, tons of corn might be infested with insects or contaminated with toxic mold. More perishable crops like fruits and vegetables may become inedible in a matter of days. Long a neglected aspect of the agricultural system in developing countries, this waste stream of food is starting to attract attention from global agriculture organizations and financial institutions, offering hope that the losses can be reduced, and with them rates of rural hunger and malnutrition.

The food waste problem has been neglected for so long that there's no long-term data to show whether these figures have changed over time. In fact, the FAO and other organizations have acknowledged that even existing estimates are not particularly reliable, because the measurement methods are haphazard at best. What's clear is that food in sub-Saharan Africa is being wasted on a large scale, and any progress in reducing that waste should benefit the region — and even the global food supply — significantly. A World Bank report, also issued in 2011, stated that even a 1 percent reduction in post-harvest losses could lead to annual economic gains of $40 million, much of it going directly to farmers.

The waste is an economic loss, but it is also a loss of precious nutrition and calories. The World Bank report estimated that the value of annual losses, $4 billion, exceeds the total value of food aid sent to sub-Saharan Africa in the decade up to 2008. Even as international efforts to reduce hunger in the region have increased, most of the dollars spent have focused on boosting crop yields, despite the lack of means for storing extra crops.

"More production is not going to be able to fill that gap that we're worried about to feed the world in the future. What we have to do is reduce losses," said Lisa Kitinoja, founder of the Oregon-based, nonprofit Postharvest Education Foundation.

Wasteful capitalism

Food grown by Kenyan farmers is rejected by UK supermarkets due to cosmetic imperfections. Some of this unwanted produce is sold on the local market or donated, but the quantities are so large that local markets cannot handle the volume and so much of it is either left to rot or fed to livestock - prompting resentment amongst Kenyan farmers who must bear the costs themselves.

 "It's a scandal that so much food is wasted in a country with millions of hungry people; we found one grower supplying a UK supermarket who is forced to waste up to 40 tonnes of vegetables every week, which is 40 per cent of what he grows," protested Tristram Stuart, food waste author.

In industrialized regions, almost half of the total food squandered, around 300 million tonnes annually, occurs because producers, retailers and consumers discard food that is still fit for consumption. This is more than the total net food production of Sub-Saharan Africa, and would be sufficient to feed the estimated 870 million people hungry in the world.

A maize small-holder farmer in Southeast Asia may lose up to 30 percent of his crop each year to mold, rodents, and insects due to a lack of dry storage equipment. A vegetable farmer in India may lose the same percentage of her crop due to deficiencies in cold storage infrastructure, such as facilities to sort out the food and store it and keep it fresh. A rice farmer in Vietnam may lose grain at multiple steps between harvest and market. That person may lose a bit at harvest, a bit more at storage, and even more during transportation. Each of these steps may lead to only a small percentage in grain loss. But those losses add up. The rice farmer may be looking at anywhere between 10 and 37 percent in losses by the time the grain reaches the marketplace.

You have farmers in developing countries that often do not have a fast and dependable way to get food to the consumer. You have inefficient transportation due to lack of roads or poor quality transport vehicles that pose numerous challenges for moving fruits, vegetables, and other perishable food from farm to market. In most of the world, in fact, refrigerated vehicles are not available or practical. You have produce moved in open, un-refrigerated trucks, leading to food loss, infestation, and contamination well before it reaches its destination.

Access to processing and storage equipment is also lacking. Unless equipment is manufactured locally, farmers can have a hard time finding what they need in the domestic market. Processing equipment that can dry high protein beans and legumes or turn soy beans into soy milk greatly transforms and extends the life of a product, as well as to increase its value, but is not always available or even affordable to smallholder farmers. In many developing countries, even if equipment is available, without accessible maintenance services and spare parts, this equipment may not be useful long-term.

Wasting Away

A survey around Kampala's urban markets, retialers and restaurants unveiled the stack reality that while food prices are soaring and many people are dropping dead or are going to bed hungry every night, unimaginable huge quantities of food are thrown away.

Food wastage is not unique to Uganda. The UN Food and Agriculture Organization says one-third of all food produced worldwide for human consumption is lost or wasted, amounting to some 1.3 billion tonnes per year. In Italy alone, one of the countries with the highest levels of wastage, food worth $53 million is thrown away every year. This would translate into 753 million meals enough to feed the entire East Africa for two years.

Kalerwe is Kampala's largest food market. Located three kilometers north of the city, the place is where many urbanites both rich and poor gather to buy affordable food items. Many city dwellers from the adjoining slums walk up to two kilometers to buy cheap and yet quality food. Even residents from upscale Kololo, Ntinda and Nakasero drive to this market mostly on weekends to buy food. Yet despite the huge turnout of shoppers, some food remains and is either sold cheaply or thrown onto garbage skips.

"Carrots, potatoes and cassava have a short shelf life and so we increase the quantities sold to attract customers" Mr Simon Mukasa who operates a stall at Kalerwe. "If you fail to sell cassava by evening then you can only throw it onto garbage skips." Yet cassava is one food item that easily be dried and processed into flour.

East African Business Week witnessed a lady throwing away tomatoes she said were rotten. "Nobody can buy these," she lamented as the reject joined a pile of ripe bananas, cabbages and stale cassava. In the city, many households especially in the slums keep some cattle and goats and one would think they would struggle to get grass and other feed supplements.
Ironically in the urban townships, many cattle farmers in the neighbouring Wakiso District that surrounds Kmapala city buy a sack of banana peelings at UGshs 3000 ($1.2). This is so because there are many cattle in the villages competing for feeds while in the city, they are just thrown away on skips.

It is estimated that about 80% of restaurants in Kampala throw away at least five kgs of food everyday. "It is easier to just throw it food away in the dustbin than to store it" said Miss Jackie Achieng who runs Palms Restaurant in Nankulabye, 3 km north west of Kampala city. She admitted that she throws away food almost every day.

The problem of postharvest losses is very crucial especially in rural areas. This is due to lack of proper storage facilities and better processing methods to prolong the shelf value. Until serious efforts are made to ensure that global food production is matched with adequate storage, transportation and processing, this life-giving resource will continue to be wasted. Amid such situation it is inevitable to conclude that worldwide hunger is simply a figurative creation rather than a reality. What is at stake is the failure to manage and equitably distribute our food resources.

In the words of Shakespeare: "Distribution should undo excess and each man have enough."

from here

Wasting food

The Namibian city of Windhoek put an abrupt stop to the dumping of expired foods at the Windhoek rubbish dumps. Hundreds of people stood ready with sacks in hand, just as they have done for months each Thursday, a City of Windhoek officials arrived on the scene and told Police officers that the food trucks were stopped and won’t dump food.

A manager at a supermarket in Windhoek said that “most of the stuff that we throw away is still fit for human consumption”. He said that “in the end there is so much that is thrown away” and suggested that instead of large scale food being dumped, a system could be created where the food is collected and redistributed to the poor and needy.

Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations, reports every year “consumers in rich countries waste almost as much food - 222 million tons - as the entire net food production of sub-Saharan Africa - 230 million tons”.