Abstract
Several studies have evaluated the effects of postharvest technologies on postharvest loss (PHL) incurred at a single stage of a food value chain. However, very few studies have assessed the effect of multiple technologies on PHL incurred at various stages of a food value chain. This study evaluated the effect of five technologies (harvesting tools, cold stores, plastic crates, fruit fly traps, and ground tarps) promoted by the Rockefeller Foundation Yieldwise Initiative (YWI) in Kenya on PHL incurred at three mango value chain stages (harvest, transportation, and point of sale). After extensive screening of the YWI data, the Kruskal–Wallis statistical test was used to compare each YWI promoted technology to smallholder farmers (SHF) traditional practices. Results indicated that plastic crates used to transport or store mangos and fruit fly traps used to attract and kill fruit flies were statistically significant (p < 0.05) in reducing PHL at the point of sale. Meanwhile, no statistical evidence of PHL reduction was observed from SHF using harvesting tools, cold stores, and ground tarps. Cold stores were the least adopted of the promoted technologies due to their high costs of implementation and utilization. While this study asserts that increased technology adoption is associated with PHL reduction, further research is needed to identify additional factors that favor technologies’ efficacy in reducing PHL in similar food value chains.
Highlights
Rising incomes in low-income countries are driving changes in dietary patterns and increasing the demand for safe and nutritious food [1]
Knowing that interventions within the Yieldwise Initiative (YWI) were not randomly attributed to farmers and that farmers who benefited from the interventions were not randomly selected, causal inferences from statistical analysis results to a larger population of smallholder farmers (SHF) can be somewhat speculative
The following conclusions were inferred from analyzing the YWI mango dataset: Efforts to reduce postharvest loss (PHL) in the mango value chain should prioritize adopting plastic crates and fruit fly traps
Summary
Rising incomes in low-income countries are driving changes in dietary patterns and increasing the demand for safe and nutritious food [1]. The two commonly documented approaches for increasing plant-based food production are agricultural intensification and cropland expansion [5] While both have contributed to global food security substantially, several limitations have been reported. The former has been challenging to achieve in geographic areas affected by climate change, especially as it pertains to increasing crop yield [6]. Cropland expansion impacts carbon storage through the loss of biomass and soil carbon [7] Given these limitations, numerous studies have suggested postharvest loss (PHL) reduction as an essential and complementary approach to meeting the increasing demand for safe and nutritious food [8]. Comparing YWI promoted technologies and identifying the value chain stage at which they are most effective, is a key step in reducing PHL along the entire value chain and improving SHF livelihoods
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