المنتدى العالمي المعني بالأمن الغذائي والتغذية

Dear All

As to me, first of all the national government, extension service delivery and NGOs working in the field of food security must have conceptual clarity to address food security including the 3 pillars (food availability, access and utilization) because malnutrition is often observed even in surplus producing areas.

The 2nd critical issue preventing food loss and maintaining food safety. Due to lack of appropriate storage facilities, transportation mechanisms the produced food are often lost and their quality and safety are compromised. This in turn affects nutrition. Perishable products such as vegetables and fruits do not have optimum cold storage until, suitable packing and transporting mechanism. As a result they cannot be kept for long due to their vulnerability for damage and nutrition loss.

Absence of market information along the value chains also force producers for any price the buyer is willing to give. Here, the brokers gain more than the producer. Appropriate storage, market information, setting floor price would have saved the producer (this is done for cereals, coffee etc, but not for vegetables and fruits).

The other critical area is the application of pesticides/fungicides. Urban agriculture in the outskirt of big town uses rivers that are sometimes polluted from biproducts and wastes coming from industries. This pollutes the vegetable. Some pesticides also have residual effect unless there is adequate days between pesticide application and harvesting of the vegetables to bring them to the market

Hence, if nutrition, food safety and reasonable gain to the producers are expected the above mentioned factors should be seen along the value chain.

Takele Teshome