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  • Publication | 2025

The evidence on crop postharvest loss reduction interventions for sub-Saharan African and South Asian food systems: a systematic scoping review update 2024

Global Food and Nutrition Security

Highlights:

  • Cereal interventions, particularly for maize storage still dominate the evidence.
  • For perishable crops, storage structures with temperatures below ambient reduced PHLs.
  • For durables, study of hermetic storage, mechanisation and training has increased.
  • Few gender, labour, food security, economic or environmental outcomes are explored.
  • Key evidence gaps exist, eg for traders and transporters, and beyond technologies.

Abstract:

Reducing postharvest losses (PHLs) is an integral part of sustainable and resilient food systems. This study updates a systematic scoping review of PHL reduction interventions from the 1970s to 2019, for 22 crops across 57 countries in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) and South Asia. This 2024 update identified 123 studies which met the inclusion criteria bringing the total evidence-base to 457 studies and 2187 interventions studied. The interventions were predominantly tangible technologies (87.7 %) followed by handling practice changes (10.1 %). Storage technology interventions mainly targeting farmers continued to dominate the evidence-base (71.3 %). Cereal interventions dominated (42.4 %), particularly maize (26.3 %) mostly in SSA. For cereals and legumes, hermetic storage bags were widely studied, and mechanised threshing and solar drying evidence had expanded. New evidence on postharvest training bundled with various technologies particularly for aflatoxin management was reported. Fruits (20.8 %), particularly citrus and mango in India, were the second most studied group, with storage protectants, particularly waxes or coatings, structures for cooling and packaging being common. Root and tuber crops accounted for 17.0 % of interventions, principally potato in India, vegetables (11.4 %), mainly onion and tomato, and legumes (8.4 %). Geographically, India then Nigeria had the most studies while 23 countries had none. Socio-economic outcomes and uptake factors are examined. This analysis highlights the continued need for systematic assessment of interventions along value chains over multiple seasons and sites, targeting stakeholders beyond farmers, with more studies on training, finance, infrastructure, policy and market interventions, and increased emphasis on social, economic and environmental outcomes of postharvest interventions.