Postharvest Technologies: Implications for Food Policy Analysis

摘要

The report is comprised of three chapters, which are essentially independent papers that deal with postharvest activities. Its objective is to challenge conventional thinking about postharvest food losses and to show that appropriate threshing and milling techniques can substantially improve farmers' productivity and equity. It is aimed primarily at food policy analysts, whose main concerns are food production and consumption. In most developing countries, policy responsibility is also divided along these lines: ministries of agriculture are usually responsible for food production up to the harvest, and ministries of food are responsible for public sector food trade and controlled distribution. This division means that the responsibility for postharvest operations falls between the cracks: no ministry is assigned oversight of these aspects of agriculture, which, for developing-country staples, contributes a substantial share to total crop value. Papers include: Farm-Level Postharvest Food Losses in Developing Countries; Threshing Techniques in Bangladesh; and Technical Change in Rice Milling and Female Labor Displacement in Bangladesh.