The Civil Society Scaling up Nutrition Alliance (SUN) has implored government to take action to avoid post-harvest losses this year as it can lead to food insecurity owing to the dry spells recorded in the last farming season.
Alliance National Coordinator Mathew Muwuru said sufficient storage is required especially for peasant farmers who may not have access to the required markets.
“With the current situation in the country and the bad rainfalls that we have received this year, I think it is very good that government should look into managing the food that we have as we know that food wastage has been one of the areas that had put us in an awkward situation,” said Mr. Muwuru.
Mr. Muwuru said the Food Reserve Agency (FRA) has no enough capacities for proper storage of the maize grain in most parts of the country.
He said government should put in place proper storage systems in place and educate small holder farmers and food producers on the impact of food wastage.
He also added that government needs to lessen grain wastage in order to contain the hunger and nutrition gap as well as improve the well-being of women and children in the remotest parts of the country.
” In a country that is recording high numbers of malnutrition and food insecurity , government has to work together with the stakeholders and food producers so that they could curtail the problem of food wastage,” Mr. Muwuru said.
As of 2014, Zambia’s post -harvest loss stood at 32 percent of maize grain due to lack of proper storage facilities.