Walking the sweet orange chain: agri-food geographies of citrus losses

Food waste in recent years has become an international priority because of the large amounts of food wasted from farm to fork. In low-income countries like Nigeria, losses are significantly higher along the food chain from production to retail. There is a dearth of research that considers various crop value chains in different geographical regions and the prevailing conditions that influence these losses. Nigeria produces 3.9 million metric tonnes of citrus annually and it estimated that 30-70% is lost to postharvest losses. This study investigated the causes of losses from farm to fork along the citrus value chain in Nigeria. It adopted the ‘follow the thing’ framework to trace the journey of an orange from the farm to the consumers’ home. A multi-method methodological strategy was employed to capture the causes and impacts of losses from the perspective of core actors with the use of questionnaires, interviews and field observations. Empirical findings suggest that citrus postharvest losses are between 10-100%. Losses were found to result from an absence of processing facilities to provide a ready market for fruits. Other causes include improper postharvest handling in the form of poor harvesting techniques, inadequate storage, packaging and transportation facilities. These losses had negative impacts on the livelihood of the actors, as they directly reduced the income they obtained. The most important cause of losses identified was the lack of political willpower due to bad governance in the provision of processing facilities. This further provided a disabling environment for the citrus market to thrive. The thesis recommends ‘follow the thing’ as an adequate framework to study and understand postharvest losses