ExtenServe Agric

😨 ADD WASTE 😂 OR 😀 ADD VALUE 💰💰

Post-harvest losses (PHL) accounts for over 30 percent of global food losses, with Africa experiencing worst situations. Hence, innovative strategies need to be developed and adapted in our production, processing, value addition, storage and preservation processes in order to minimize incidences of post-harvest damages thereby enhancing food security, reducing hunger and poverty in the Sub-Saharan Africa.

In Nigeria, from the fruit market in mile 12 to zaki biam, down to iseyin and reaching ogoja its clear that one must no longer glory in the expands of cocoa farm that his father has if value is not added.

Africa accounts for 75% of the world's cocoa production, with 65% of this being produced in Cote d’Ivoire and Ghana, but the continent is a price taker and receives only 2% of the $100 billion annual revenues from chocolates globally. The reason is because Africa exports just raw cocoa beans.

This pattern is the same for other commodities in which Africa is a major producer. Africa produces 146 million tons out of the 268 million tons of cassava in the world – or 55%, 5.4 million tons of the 5.6 million tons of cowpeas globally – or 9.62 million out of the 28 million tons of millet globally – or 43% and 29 million tons of the 69 million tons of sorghum globally - or 42%.

But producing raw materials is not enough. It is time for Africa to move to the top of the global food value chains, through agro-industrialization and adding value to all of what it produces.

However, it has to be a collective approach mostly private sector driven involving farmers in collaboration with government and its institutions at all levels as well as professionals, we must channel the minds of our young people across the continent of Africa 🌍 to adding value, with access to the right financing, skills and retraining required for productivity.

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