If all this is true, why haven't the World Bank, USAID et al. rushed headlong into strengthening local storage and processing arrangements? To give them the benefit of the doubt, they perhaps do not fully understand the situation, for, as this same authority points out, very little real work has been done on the subject of post-harvest losses and a good bit of what has been done is inaccurate because it counts as "loss" what is really nothing but weight-reduction due to evaporation of moisture. One of the few serious studies done shows that depending on the climate of the region and the diligence of individual farmers, peasant losses actually range from 2 ½ to 11%.
The simplest explanation for the new vogue of Post Harvest Technology is that it costs money and can be a new market opening up for Western suppliers—the Green Revolution of the 80s, so to speak. (Incidentally, hybrid, Green Revolution grain is more delicate and more difficult to store—it may require mechanical drying and special techniques. This is one illustration of the inter-relatedness of the uniform food system —accept one part and you may be stuck with them all).
The other agribusiness connection is more tenuous, but convincing. Processing firms that set up in UDCs must be assured of regular supplies for their plants. Only centralized storage can provide these. Thus "investments in commercial storage facilities may be made by industrial processors, including those in the feed industry, in order to secure supplies and stabilize raw material costs . . . "86
Governments also want to be very sure they have enough food on hand in time of shortage so that they may forestall social upheavals in the cities. But they are frequently confronted with recalcitrant peasants who would rather keep their grain for their own families. "In order to resolve the dilemma (of empty central storage) a grains and legumes board in a western African country resorted to sending soldiers into villages to induce farmers to sell."87
The newest institution in the United Nations family, the UN University (UNU), has one program devoted to food processing and post harvest losses. Two of its earliest advisors were officers of General Foods and Campbell's Soups. The UNU recommendations on PHT are surprisingly close to those of the late Industry Cooperative Programme, e.g. "(one must) prevent, through the application of post- harvest technology, the quantitative and qualitative food losses that are estimated to be between 20 and 40% in the developing countries" (here come those figures again), so what is needed is "interdisciplinary application of science and technology and management practices in order to conserve food . . .” 88
Nowhere is there any mention of existing systems (except insofar as they can be improved with "science and technology") nor is there consideration of the cost that expensive post harvest systems will inevitably add to food. Of the 21 members of the original UNU Expert Group, most were Western or Japanese professors of "food science and technology," only six were from the Third World, and none were women. Of the first three "associated institutions" training UNU Fellows in PHT, all are located in cities. Some good may come out of concentrating on losses and processing, but the UNU should be watched carefully to ascertain whether or not it is merely another antechamber for agribusiness.
Industrial food processing that uses machinery imported from the developed world (outside of supplying the largest cities) is not the answer for the Third World. Once again, it is too costly and puts food out of the reach of most people. It weighs on foreign exchange outflows and often doesn't even produce the sorts of basic foods that are needed. Nestle, for example, never engages in fluid milk production in UDCs but prefers condensed milk, infant formulas and other high- profit items like yogurt and ice-cream. Western processing using capital intensive techniques creates very little employment, whereas simple, labor intensive storage and processing arrangements create employment and through more employment create more demand for other goods. Any increase in food production—if it is processed locally, will help create jobs. For example, the International Labour Organization has shown that an extra five million tons of paddy (rice), if hand crushed, could provide employment for 870,000 people.89