1 min
What is a future without something to eat to sustain life? Why would there be a future without nothing to eat when we have farmers? This could be our sad reality tomorrow if nothing is being done.
The joy of every farmer is to achieve bumper harvest and high-grade produce, which are very key to improve not only the farmers' livelihood but the nation's economy. However, obtaining good yield is not enough but the ability to ensure that the good yield is preserved in terms of quantity and quality until it gets to the market. Thus, ensuring that good agricultural practices are implemented during the post-harvesting activities are very key and farmers need to acquire the necessary skills to carry out these activities seamlessly.
One of the important post-harvest activities is storage as this helps to elongate the shelf life of harvested produce. To achieve good stored produce, farmers must store at a safe level which is achieved by either reducing the moisture content of the produce (in case of grains) or inhibiting further ripening or deterioration (in case of fruits and vegetables). In both cases, there is a need to adopt technologies that help to guarantee that produce are well dried to a safe level or remains fresh under a controlled environment. This is a very crucial postharvest activity to achieve food security. This is because about 40-60% of harvested produce are lost annually as a result of poor handling practices. Therefore, adopting good storage practices and infrastructure will help to increase the quantity and quality of food available especially in developing countries.
Therefore, developing adaptable storage infrastructure is a major requirement in achieving zero hunger and acquiring the right skills to handle it are ingredients of success. Also,more awareness needs to be done at the farm level to encourage the use of simple storage facilities that increase shelf life of agricultural produce and also develop the technical know-how locally for easy access to technical personnel in case of any unintended challenges. In conclusion, improving access to food will help to increase productivity in the economy, thus, we need more investment in providing low-cost storage facilities to the farmers in order to make food accessibility and availability possible in the 21st Century.
Yours-in-Service
Babatunde
One of the important post-harvest activities is storage as this helps to elongate the shelf life of harvested produce. To achieve good stored produce, farmers must store at a safe level which is achieved by either reducing the moisture content of the produce (in case of grains) or inhibiting further ripening or deterioration (in case of fruits and vegetables). In both cases, there is a need to adopt technologies that help to guarantee that produce are well dried to a safe level or remains fresh under a controlled environment. This is a very crucial postharvest activity to achieve food security. This is because about 40-60% of harvested produce are lost annually as a result of poor handling practices. Therefore, adopting good storage practices and infrastructure will help to increase the quantity and quality of food available especially in developing countries.
Therefore, developing adaptable storage infrastructure is a major requirement in achieving zero hunger and acquiring the right skills to handle it are ingredients of success. Also,more awareness needs to be done at the farm level to encourage the use of simple storage facilities that increase shelf life of agricultural produce and also develop the technical know-how locally for easy access to technical personnel in case of any unintended challenges. In conclusion, improving access to food will help to increase productivity in the economy, thus, we need more investment in providing low-cost storage facilities to the farmers in order to make food accessibility and availability possible in the 21st Century.
Yours-in-Service
Babatunde
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