Development projects on interventions to reduce postharvest losses (PHL) are often implemented largely independently of the specific context and without sufficient adaptation to the needs of people who are supposed to use them. An approach is needed for the design and implementation of specific, locally owned interventions in development projects. Our approach is based on Participatory Development and includes Living Lab and World Cafés. We applied the approach in a case study on reducing PHL in tomato value chains in Nigeria. The approach consists of nine steps. After scoping the sector, selected value chain stakeholders (case: farmers, transporters, traders, retailers) were gathered in Living Lab workshops. In the workshop, participants analyzed the product, information, and monetary flows in their own value chain, identified causes for PHL, and selected potential interventions to reduce these (case: plastic crates instead of raffia baskets to transport tomatoes). Selected interventions were implemented, tested, and monitored in pilot projects with the workshop participants. This was followed by an evaluation workshop. At the end of the case study, 89% of participants bought crates to keep using them in their value chain. Our approach resulted in context-specific, locally owned interventions to reduce PHL in the case study on tomato value chains in Nigeria. Its application in other countries, commodities, or interventions is needed to determine the effectiveness of the approach in a broader scope.
The study assess the competitiveness of the fruit and vegetable sector and suggests specific recommendations for further development. It also provides insights in market, trade and investment opportunities. A focus is applied to a limited number of crop specific case studies. In Uganda the production of fruit and vegetable is gaining importance. Despite agricultural practices being weak, farmers in Uganda can make a reasonable profit margin from their farm plots. In addition, key performances indicators of Uganda compared with Kenya show that most products for the domestic and regional markets are very competitive in terms of quality, price and yield.
From being a smallholder-based, food-producing country covering its basic needs, Iraq and the Kurdistan Region in Iraq (KRI) have become major importers of food. The sustainability of the agricultural sector has been systematically undermined by conflict, neglect, and mismanagement, as a result of which the capacity of its farmers to feed the population declined. Even though local policymakers, the international community, and the international organisations emphasise the potential of agriculture for food production, job creation, and income generation, they also tend to consider the current food system problematic because of an alleged low productivity that they relate to the existing smallholder system. For them, such system poses a lack of competences and skills of farmers, and a subsistence production orientation. This approach culminated in a policy-making process that offered land and water for capital investments, and thus neglecting the potentials and competencies of (small-scale) farmers. The concomitant neglect of the human dimension of agriculture, namely the family farm, is essentially the continuation of an economically and ecologically high-risk approach that may lead to a further decline of the sector's ability to produce food for the local market.
Human diets and their associated environmental impacts differ across segments of the population. There is evidence that consumer choices of food intake can also affect the overall environmental impacts of a food system. This paper analyzes the environmental impact of diets and food choices across a rural–urban transect in Northern Vietnam by using mixed survey data from 619 adult respondents. The average greenhouse gas emissions (GHGE) resulting from producing the daily food intake of adults in the urban and peri-urban districts were similar, while the average in the rural district was lower. Although starchy staples contributed the most to energy intake, pork and beef were the largest contributors to GHGE. Metrics of blue water use were higher for diets of males than those of females in all three districts. Interestingly, the difference in mean diet diversity score between urban and rural households was significant, and females’ diets were more diverse than those of males. As expected, urban households were more likely to buy food, while rural households often produced their own foods. Urban households reported prioritizing personal health and the natural content of food and would increase seafood and fruits if their income were to increase. In rural regions, interventions aimed at reducing undernutrition should address improving diet quality without significant increases to diet-related environmental impacts.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.
hi@scite.ai
10624 S. Eastern Ave., Ste. A-614
Henderson, NV 89052, USA
Copyright © 2024 scite LLC. All rights reserved.
Made with 💙 for researchers
Part of the Research Solutions Family.