Better training for agricultural producers could reduce food insecurity
McGill Bioresource Engineering Professors Val茅rie Orsat and Vijaya Raghavan spoke to听Le Devoir听about their recent study, which found that better educating farmers and food processors about how to avoid post-harvest food losses would reduce global food insecurity.
鈥淟osses occur at different points in the agri-food distribution chain, depending on where you are on the planet,鈥� explained Prof. Val茅rie Orsat.
For example, Prof.听Raghavan told Le Devoir听how, in Southern India, his team found that the problem lies in food storage practices, where the cold chain does not exist in some places. By听providing food processing training to rural communities, they successfully reduced food losses while creating local jobs.
On the other hand, though concerns about the resulting economic losses and environmental impacts are universal, food losses have different causes in North America.
"In Quebec, we probably have significant losses sometimes due to market pressures where we expect a certain price, we hold back certain commodities, so there will be losses that are linked to market laws," Prof. Orsat told Le Devoir.
"For anyone working in the food chain, [it's] about understanding where the ingredients come from, what they're used for in processing and what the extras are," she said, pointing to the example of spent grain from brewing beer, which can be used in mushroom production or animal feed.听
For Prof. Orsat, this underscores the importance of training agricultural producers to ensure they "understand the importance of inputs and the by-products that can come out of them."