Accelerating Post-Harvest Food Loss Reduction in Nigeria Through the Development of a Pilot-Scale Vacuum Cooling and Storage System

Jubril Abu Al-Amin ,A I Suleiman ,Eriakha Ehis Collins

doi:10.7176/jbah/11-20-03

Abstract

The problem of the loss of food after harvest has drawn worldwide attention in the latest decades. The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and other national and international organizations had estimated that one-third of all foods produced and half of all fruit and vegetables are lost or wasted between harvest and use. In September 2015, the United Nations (UN) announced its objective of decreasing global food waste and significantly decreasing global food loss by 2030, as part of its Sustainable Development Goals (SDG). The post-harvest loss of food is a major challenge in sub-Saharan African nations for farmers and growers, with spoilt foods leading to up to 50% of harvested food that does not reach the marketplace. This is not only a problem for farmers themselves, who are suffering from decreased incomes and loss of commercial opportunities, but it is also a problem for the environment and resources as far as unnecessary emissions of greenhouse gas are concerned. This paper examines the opportunities that a vacuum storage system presents in reducing food losses after harvest and highlights the challenges in Nigeria to adopt this technology. The equally encapsulated the design, fabrication and testing of vacuum cooling machine Keywords: Postharvest, Food Loss, Nigeria, Storage, Vacuum-Cooling DOI: 10.7176/JBAH/11-20-03 Publication date: October 31 st 2021

Highlights

Introduction SubSaharan Africa governments have become increasingly worried about the worldwide food crisis in the last two decades
Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) estimates from the year 2011 indicates that between production and consumption, as much as 37 percent of food produced in sub-Saharan Africa is lost (World Bank) due to improper preservation and storage of produce
The proximate analysis, physicochemical properties of the stored fruits were done after storage for one, two, three months respectively

Summary

Introduction

Introduction SubSaharan Africa governments have become increasingly worried about the worldwide food crisis in the last two decades. While the prime cause of this crisis is the increase in overall prices of food and other related goods that began in 2006 and has continued to rise. These issues continue for several reasons, including the current greater market-clearing price levels, the continuing price volatility and the erratic food shortages that continue to occur far into the future. The small-income countries of Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) have their persistent causative factors, along with persistently low productivity, challenges in acclimatizing climate change, economic challenges presented by their reluctance to address the burden of high food or energy prices, and increased dependence on foreign food aid (World Bank, 2011). In September 2015, as part of its Sustainable Development Goals (SDG), the United Nations (UN) announced its goal of reducing worldwide food waste and considerably reducing worldwide food loss by 2030 (Kitinoja et al, 2011; World Bank, 2011)

Objectives

Methods

Results

Conclusion