Central to any effort to reduce losses is the adoption of better postharvest practice. This is fundamental for smallholders who want to improve their household food security and for those wishing to make better livelihoods from grain sales.

This section was developed in collaboration with the Postharvest Loss Reduction Centre at the Natural Resources Institute (NRI). NRI, as partner of the  CoP on Food Loss Reduction, contributes by sharing its expertise and by helping to connect experts.

In the framework of the  Rome-based UN agencies joint project, the development of this section was supported by the Swiss Agency for Development and Co-operation (SDC). Based on a survey of over 30 postharvest technologists, the NRI team developed an interactive catalogue of storage technologies for easy consultation.

The NRI work on “Choosing the right grain store” can be accessed here.

From this website sub-page you can access the NRI Catalogue that classifies storage technologies by category (hermetic, sealable, open weave, and improved traditional), provides generic descriptions, gives information on the qualities and usage of the store types that are currently available, and presents estimates of cost as of the date of its development (link to the catalogue).