ADM Institute for the Prevention of Postharvest Loss

Combating Postharvest Loss for Smallholders: How to Achieve Sustainable Adoption?

Combating Postharvest Loss for Smallholders: How to Achieve Sustainable Adoption?

By Steve Sonka and Grace Kenney

The ADM Institute for the Prevention of Postharvest Loss is currently working on a learning assessment of global food loss as part of a grant funded with financial support from the Rockefeller Foundation for the Waste and Spoilage in the Food Chain Development Initiative. This effort has led to opportunities to highlight areas of focus in postharvest loss and development projects.

At the Alliance for a Green Revolution Forum 2014, Rockefeller Foundation and AGRA co-hosted a side event on “Reducing Post Harvest Loss and Food Waste”. A short video was prepared for that session to highlight some of the lessons learned within the ADM Institute research effort.  Dr. Steve Sonka, Research Professor at the ADM Institute for the Prevention of Postharvest Loss at the University of Illinois, is the narrator of the video.

In this video, Dr. Sonka addresses the following questions:

  • Why is reduction of postharvest loss important?
  • Can smallholder farmers in Africa employ the technologies needed to reduce postharvest loss?
  • Why haven’t we seen widespread adoption of technologies to reduce PHL in developing countries?
  • What are the central learning lessons offered by the examples mentioned?

Examples of effective storage in Uganda and Burkina Faso, as well as the metal silo project by the ​Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation in Central America, are discussed.

We invite you to listen to the video and join us in our learning process.