One of the main challenges facing Ethiopia today is to ensure food security for its rapidly growing population. Although Ethiopia's production is much lower than the national demand, there are high post-harvest food losses. In meeting a country's food demand, increasing production by itself is not enough unless what has been produced is properly managed. In line with this, extensive assessment of post-harvest losses of tomato along the supply chain and the associated factors were evaluated in four purposively selected districts of East Shewa Zone of Ethiopia. The assessment was made using Commodity System Assessment Methodology from "farm-to-fork" to investigate the status of post-harvest losses of tomato along the supply chain and the associated factors in the pursuit of recommending appropriate mitigation strategies. Information was gathered from a total of N ¼ 408 sampled chain actors (producers to consumers) and related institutions. Results revealed that losses of tomato due to improper care and handling of the commodity regardless of its high production in the study area were common problems for all chain actors. A loss of 20.5%, 8.6%, 2.9%, and 7.3% at the producer, wholesalers, retailers, and hotel and caf e level was recorded respectively with a total loss of 39.3%. Total losses across districts ranged from 17.2-33.3. Field, transportation and market display were major critical loss points identified. Practices such as market fluctuation, lack of temperature management, no/poor sorting and mixed handling of the crop, carelessness on the loss prevention and its impact were identified among the common causes for observed losses. Therefore, creating awareness on the effect of all causes of food loss and minimizing economic loss is recommended. Moreover, affordable and appropriate technology adaptation is needed to reduce observed food losses across the districts.

Considerable area of land is becoming unproductive every year because of salinity and sodicity in lowlands of Ethiopia. For sound land use and irrigation water management, it is a paramount important to know the chemical composition of soils and irrigation water. Therefore, the study was aimed to evaluate the physicochemical properties of soils and irrigation water of Tendaho sugarcane production farm, located in northeastern rift valley of Ethiopia. Depth wise soil samples from 4 different locations and 1 irrigation water sample from 2 sub-samples (from delivery head and the influent river) were collected. The result of the particle size analysis indicates that majority of the soils were heavily textured. The pH of the soil in all parts of the study area ranged from 7.8 to 8.6. Electrical conductivity readings of most of the studied soil profiles were high. Exchangeable sodium percentage values showed actual sodium toxicity problem (ESP>15) in the first profile and potential sodium toxicity (ESP>1) in the remaining profiles. On the other hand, the irrigation water has a low sodicity hazard; however, pH (7.65) and EC (0.654 dS/m) values clearly indicated that it is moderately alkaline and saline. Hence, coupled with water and soil analysis results, there will be a potential danger of sodicity and actual salinity development in the intended irrigation scheme. Thus, selection of crop type and proper irrigation methods should be designed for sustainability of soil productivity in the study area.

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