ABSTRACT
Domestic food production in Tanzania is barely sufficient to meet national food needs. Out of 29 regions, those experiencing prolonged periods of drought and hence food shortages include Pwani, Lindi, Mtwara, Tanga, the semi-arid central regions of Dodoma and Singida, and some parts of Shinyanga, Morogoro, Kigoma and Mara. Among the reasons for shortages in the food supplies are the inherent weaknesses in the postharvest handling (PH) systems. This contributes to high food prices. These food losses also impact on the environment, as land, water, non-renewable resources such as fertilizer and energy used to produce, handle, process and transport food are eventually lost, and the products do not reach to the final consumer.
Mitigating PH losses can greatly improve food security by increasing food availability, incomes and nutrition, without the need to employ extra production resources. Approaches for PH loss mitigation in Tanzania have had little success. Many smallholder farmers still continue with subsistence post-production management practices. For example, traditional storage methods are extremely popular despite huge investments made to popularize improved storage technologies. Adoption of PH interventions has often been poor because of innovation cost, socio-cultural sensitivities and inadequate knowledge among the majority of farming communities. Furthermore, many interventions still take a purely technical focus missing out on the appropriate issues. Past interventions to reduce PH losses targeted improvement of handling and storage practices were through the transfer of single and unconnected technologies, particularly for root crops and maize only.
The global consensus that is mitigating food losses which occurs between harvesting and consumption offers the single, most enormous opportunity for contributing to hunger alleviation. There are certain basic skills that if farmers are given access to manage PH losses, will empower their knowledge capacities as well as offsetting food deficits.
