**1. Introduction**

Recent years have brought about increasing opportunities to explore approaches for sustainability around the globe. With the ever-increasing global population and ongoing effects of climate change, addressing future food security has become a major challenge. This is also a major issue taken up by the United Nations. In particular, Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 2 of the Post-2015 Development Agenda aims to 'end hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition and promote sustainable agriculture' [1]. SDG 2 emphasises the improvement of food supplies in developing countries, stating, 'Increase investment, including through enhanced international cooperation, in rural infrastructure, agricultural research and extension services, technology development and plant and livestock gene banks in order to enhance agricultural productive capacity in developing countries, in particular least developed countries' [1]. Improvement in food supplies tends to be the focus of attention on ensuring food security; however, managing postharvest crops is also a critical issue. This research focuses on postharvest crop handling, analysing the current circumstances and proposing potential measures for improvement.

In many countries, a large number of crops are discarded at the postharvest stage. This occurs because many foods expire before being delivered to consumers. This challenge is considered to be particularly serious in developing countries mainly due to a lack of capital and technology for food storage, processing (i.e. threshing, drying and packaging) and distribution. Improvements in storage and processing technologies can delay spoilage, and efficient supply chain logistics can enable faster delivery of postharvest crops. The achievement of such improvements requires recapitalisation of postharvest technology; however, simply recapitalising postharvest technology will not improve the situation because local people in many developing countries often face difficulties with fully utilising modern postharvest technologies due to a lack of knowledge and capability. Moreover, when successful investment results (i.e. reduction in postharvest losses) are rarely realised, foundation bodies (i.e. international organisations and investors) are discouraged from providing funding in such countries. This analysis seeks to investigate and explain the cause of the circumstances in which the capital for handling postharvest crops is not fully utilised and how this affects foundation bodies' decision-making on providing postharvest development support.

This chapter is organised into six sections. Section 2 presents an analysis of the current circumstances of postharvest loss, and Section 3 investigates the process of handling postharvest crops. In Section 4, the potential for improving the management of postharvest crops through recapitalisation is considered. Section 5 presents a theoretical analysis of capital investment for handling postharvest crops. In this section, we also study three successful cases of agricultural development support in developing countries. Section 6 analyses the agricultural investment and development in the least developed countries and the G20 countries. Finally, Section 7 concludes this study.

#### **2. The current circumstances of food loss at the postharvest stage**

This section will analyse the current circumstances in which production is discarded in the postharvest stage. To formally analyse this situation, defining first the ultimate goal of global food security, as well as food loss and waste, is required. The Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) of the United Nations indicates that food security occurs when all people—at all times—have physical, social and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food that meets their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life [2]. Two main issues arise for securing food: improving the crop harvesting process and reducing postharvest loss. The problem with postharvest loss is especially serious, a large number of postharvest crops are discarded without being consumed. One study argues that solutions for reducing postharvest losses require relatively modest investment and can result in higher returns than increasing crop production to meet food demand [3]. Postharvest loss is divided into food loss and food waste. 'Food loss is the decrease in the quantity or quality of food resulting from decisions and actions by food suppliers in the chain, excluding retailers, food service providers and consumers' [4]. 'Food waste refers to the decrease in the quantity or quality of food resulting from decisions and actions by retailers, food service providers and

### *Challenges and Measures to Recapitalise Handling of Postharvest Crops in Developing… DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.101222*

consumers' [4]. In other words, food loss refers to the discarding of food before shipping, and food waste refers to discarding food after its shipping for reasons such as being unsold. The status of postharvest loss differs by country. **Tables 1** and **2** present the amount of cereal product and loss (in 1000 tonnes) in the world's least developed and G20 countries in 2019.<sup>1</sup>


#### **Table 1.**

*Food products and losses in the world's least developed countries in 2019.*

<sup>1</sup> Since there are many types of food, typical crops (i.e. maize, wheat and rice) are used in this study. The least developed countries in **Table 1** are identified by the data source. Countries not reporting data for any at least one of the three crops are omitted. The European Union (EU) is omitted in **Table 2** because the EU does not represent a single nation. The variables are identified in FAOSTAT for Product with the Domain code FSB, Element code of 5511 and Item codes for maize–2514, rice–2807 and wheat–2511. Loss is represented by Domain code FBS, Element code 5123 and Item codes for maize–2514, rice–2807 and wheat–2511. The codes (other than area codes) of variables in **Table 2** are identical to those in **Table 1**. The area and year codes of the variables are not presented because they depend on the countries and years selected. For more information about these codes, please refer the data source.


*Source: FAOSTAT (http://www.fao.org/faostat/en/#data).*

#### **Table 2.**

*Food products and losses in the G20 countries in 2019.*

As shown in **Tables 1** and **2**, food losses occur in both the least developed and the G20 countries<sup>2</sup> ; however, the causes of food loss differ between them. Specifically, the main cause of food loss in the least developed countries is inadequate equipment and provisions for managing postharvest crops, whereas in G20 nations food loss is likely due to consumers' excessive demands for food quality and retail stores'sales strategies. For example, consumers in Japan demand excessively high food quality (i.e. consumers prefer to purchase attractive produce without pesticides); hence, much of the product that does not suit consumer preferences (i.e. slightly damaged or of an undesirable size) is discarded [5]. There are a large number of extremely competitive retail stores known as convenience stores in Japan that often overstock foods because they do not want to lose customers due to running out of food stock [5]. In contrast, due to insufficient capital for processing and preserving food in developing countries, fresh foods are rarely delivered to consumers. For example, most postharvest grains in developing countries are stored in traditional storage structures that do not prevent insect infestation and mould [3]. Although people try to make the best use of the food produced in developing countries, a significant amount of production is lost in postharvest operations due to a lack of knowledge, inadequate technology and/or poor storage infrastructure [3].

Section 2 analyses the contrasting circumstances of discarding postharvest crops in developed and developing countries. Based on the data investigated, a significant number of cereals are discarded in both developed and developing

<sup>2</sup> According to FAOSTAT, production is reported at the farm level for crop and livestock products, whereas loss represents wastage during the year at all stages at which production is recorded and the household. As a result, in the case of some countries, loss exceeds production.

*Challenges and Measures to Recapitalise Handling of Postharvest Crops in Developing… DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.101222*

countries; however, the reasons for discarding differ. Specifically, in developing countries, cereals are likely to be discarded due to a lack of facilities for processing postharvest crops, which is considered food loss. Conversely, in developed countries, cereals are discarded due to consumers' high-quality standards for food and retailers' business strategy (i.e. overstocking of food), which is also considered to be food waste.
