In the just ended 2021 annual ASABE conference that took place between 12 to 16th July virtually, Ebenezer Kwofie, the lead PI at the Miezah Lab made a presentation at the Modernizing African Agri-food System session. The Modernizing African Agri-food System initiative (MAA) takes a holistic approach in exploring the adoption of modern technologies to accelerate improvements in the food value chain in Sub-Saharan Africa
Presentation Topic: Lean Agro-Process Support System (LAPS System): Enhancing African Agri-food processing capacity through knowledge transfer and digitization.
Presentation Abstract
In Sub-Saharan Africa, 37% of food produced is lost between production and consumption. Post-harvest handling and storage contribute to a staggering 10-12% of these annual losses. This translates to $4 billion annually, which is enough to feed at least 300 million people.
At the farm level, these challenges are attributed to a lack of: (1) knowledge on artisanal technologies to process perishable produce (2) poor information dissemination among the stakeholders in the value chain, (3) timely information on prices, which causes most farmers to sell their produce at prices lower than expected.
At the policy level, there is neither stimulus to eradicate primitive farming style, nor techno-economic information of different primary processing pathways, which makes agriculture unattractive to the youth. Here, we introduce a Lean-Agri-Process Dashboard, a digital technology that leverages on the best knowledge on artisanal technologies, evidence based PHL interventions for Sub-Saharan Africa and decision modelling, to advise farmers and small scale Agro-processors on the best intervention strategy to maximize profit (double their sales) and reduce post-harvest loss