Experts advocate use of tech to reduce post-harvest losses

Agricultural industry experts have identified as for the use of the right coverage and technologies to curb put up-harvest losses in get to increase foodstuff output and reduce the charges of foodstuffs in Nigeria.

The industry experts spoke at a seminar on ‘Feed up Africa’ held in Ibadan, the Oyo Condition cash, on Wednesday.

1 of them, Eric Alao, an agro-processing qualified, when talking at the seminar urged Nigerians to minimize publish-harvest losses just as he determined wastage on farm and soon after manufacturing as contributing to raising charges of agricultural make and food items scarcity in the place.

Alao extra that food items processing have to be inspired as a way of stopping wastage.

“One of the means of strengthening food stability is by minimizing submit-harvest losses. African article-harvest loss can be as significant as 50 percent in vegetables, fruits and root tubers and 25 per cent in cereals.

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“Also, there ought to be satisfactory sensitisation and schooling together the write-up-harvest chain on excellent agronomical tactics. There will have to also be satisfactory schooling and expertise transfer to agric players in comprehending the will cause of the decline and adopting preventive methods to decrease it.

“Economical technological innovation that meets the smallholder farmers’ publish-harvest needs is also pretty vital as well as responsible consumption to be certain optimum foods usage and waste reduction.”

Also, Dickson Orisamuyiwa explained Nigerian traders should go in to lower wastages to shore up the country’s food items output ability. He said, “Post-harvest systems can lead to foodstuff stability in numerous approaches.

They can lessen losses thereby escalating the volume of meals offered for intake by farmers and very poor rural and urban customers.

“The benefits to individuals from reducing losses include things like reduce prices and enhanced food security. In addition, postharvest activities this sort of as processing and advertising and marketing can create work and better meals safety in the agricultural sector.

“Therefore, cutting down postharvest losses obviously complements other initiatives to improve meals security via enhanced farm-degree efficiency.”