Mozambique: Post-harvest losses cost farmers 30 per cent of production

Maputo — Mozambique loses about 30 per cent of its agricultural production every year in post-harvest losses caused by inadequate handling and ineffective household storage, according to the deputy director in Mozambique of the UN World Food Programme (WFP), Pierre Lucas. The post-harvest losses, worst among the main grain crops (maize, rice, millet and sorghum), beans, groundnuts and cassava, cause food insecurity. Farmers find themselves obliged to sell their crops at low prices after the harvest, only to buy them back later in times of shortage. Lucas was speaking in Maputo at the launch of the second phase of the "Zero Post-Harvest Losses Initiative", which seeks to reverse the current scenario. "Often farmers lose much of their production, which they worked so hard to attain, because they keep their produce in barns that are very vulnerable to losses", he said. "To minimise the losses, they tend to sell their production immediately after the harvest. Later, in the dry season, ...