PERSPECTIVE article
Front. Hortic.
Sec. Postharvest Physiology, Management and Technology
Volume 4 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fhort.2025.1537852
This article is part of the Research TopicSustainable Approaches to Food Loss and Waste Reduction in Smallholder Horticulture: from Proof of Concept to ScaleView all 8 articles
A Call for Locally Led Postharvest Innovation to Urgently Address Global Nutrition Insecurity
Provisionally accepted
Peninah Yumbya1*
Archie Jarman2
Kristen Becker2Katheryn Gregerson2Heather Hayashi2Michel Kabirigi2
Erin McGuire2- 1International Center for Evaluation and Development, Nairobi, Kenya
- 2University of California, Davis, Davis, United States
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Reducing food loss and waste has recently gained significant global attention. However, prolonged underinvestment in efforts to tackle food loss and waste, particularly in horticultural crops, now demands accelerated, collaborative action. Neglecting to invest in postharvest initiatives in horticulture exacerbates global nutrition insecurity, diminishes global resilience to climate change impacts, wastes scarce resources, and sustains greenhouse gas emissions. Addressing food loss and waste involves tackling a complex array of issues throughout the food system, from upstream research and policy to downstream handling, and consumption. This complexity can make it challenging to develop effective, scalable interventions that demonstrate clear impacts in the short term. Integrating interdisciplinary perspective ensures that innovations are inclusive, scalable and context specific for sustained and measurable global impact. Locally led postharvest innovations are well suited to maximize vital opportunities for improved livelihoods, particularly for marginalized groups such as women who are heavily involved in postharvest activities globally.Establishing a global consensus on the importance of effective postharvest management is essential for improving access, affordability, and profitability in horticultural value chains. Achieving this requires innovations tailored to regional and local needs, improved postharvest systems, and capacity strengthening that simultaneously promote equity. A supportive policy framework is vital, promoting local expertise and balancing the benefits of export markets with regional consumption. We are calling for a reframing of approaches to reducing postharvest losses in horticulture crops as an absolute necessity if we are to achieve the United Nations' SDGs and outline our perspective to promote a transition in approach.
Keywords: nutrition, Food loss and waste, Locally led, innovations, horticulture
Received: 01 Dec 2024; Accepted: 25 Apr 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Yumbya, Jarman, Becker, Gregerson, Hayashi, Kabirigi and McGuire. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Peninah Yumbya, International Center for Evaluation and Development, Nairobi, Kenya
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