{"id":3005,"date":"2026-09-16T08:49:25","date_gmt":"2026-09-16T07:49:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/iprblog\/?p=3005"},"modified":"2026-09-17T09:32:47","modified_gmt":"2026-09-17T08:32:47","slug":"nigeria-has-the-evidence-on-food-loss-now-it-needs-to-turn-it-into-action","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/iprblog\/2026\/09\/16\/nigeria-has-the-evidence-on-food-loss-now-it-needs-to-turn-it-into-action\/","title":{"rendered":"Nigeria has the evidence on food loss. Now it needs to turn it into action."},"content":{"rendered":"

Reducing food loss in Nigeria requires more than documenting its scale. Ifeoluwa Abulude<\/a>, Postdoctoral Research Associate at the Institute of Metabolic Science, University of Cambridge, explores opportunities to connect research with policy and turn evidence into practical solutions.<\/em><\/p>\n

Nigeria loses an estimated 38 million tonnes of food every year, more than any other country in Africa<\/a>. Most of the food produced never reaches a consumer. It spoils during harvest, sits too long in poor storage, breaks down in transit, or is damaged during processing. The consequence is a triple loss. Less food is available for consumers to eat. Farmers lose income from produce they cannot sell. And the land, water, labour and energy used to produce food are wasted along with the crop.<\/p>\n

Reducing this food loss requires action. Nigeria needs to connect research more deliberately to policy and investment decisions, identifying where further evidence could inform or change decisions, while building stronger relationships between researchers, policymakers and actors in the food supply chain to turn knowledge into practical solutions.<\/p>\n

The distinction between food loss and food waste<\/h2>\n

Food loss and food waste are related, but they are not the same thing<\/a>. The Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO) defines food loss as reductions in the quantity or quality of food along the supply chain before the retail stage. Food waste, by contrast, concerns food discarded at the retail and household levels.<\/p>\n

The distinction matters because the causes and potential solutions can differ.<\/p>\n

Food losses can reflect infrastructure and food handling problems, but they can also arise from pests and diseases, and the decisions food-system actors make. Food waste can be influenced by consumer behaviour, as well as market conditions.<\/p>\n

In Nigeria, much of the loss occurs before food has the chance to reach consumers.<\/p>\n

Scale of the food loss problem<\/h2>\n

Nigeria is not alone in facing this challenge. Globally, the FAO estimates<\/a> that 13.2% of food is lost in the supply chain after harvest and before retail, while food loss and waste together account for an estimated 8\u201310% of global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. If food loss and waste were a country, it would rank as the third-largest emitter of GHGs in the world<\/a>, behind only the United States and China.<\/p>\n

The United Nations (UN) has made reducing these losses an explicit policy goal. Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 12.3<\/a> calls for countries to halve per-capita food waste at the retail and consumer levels, and reduce food losses along production and supply chains by 2030.<\/p>\n

Evidence-to-policy gap<\/h2>\n

Nigeria provides an important case study of what it will take to meet that target. It already has a substantial body of research examining where food is lost,<\/a> why these losses occur and what could be done about them. The country does not simply need more research about the existence of food loss. It needs to understand how existing evidence can be translated into decisions, investments and interventions that work in particular places and contexts.<\/p>\n

Crucially, there is also a need for more consistent approaches to measuring food loss. Without a shared way of quantifying the problem, it is difficult to compare interventions across regions or track progress.<\/p>\n

Food loss varies by commodity, location and stage of the supply chain, so national estimates can conceal important differences. This does not mean that Nigeria should wait for perfect data before acting. It means that better measurement should be connected to decisions. This is as much a knowledge exchange and policy challenge as it is a scientific one.<\/p>\n

What co-production means in practice<\/h2>\n

One way to close this gap is through co-production, bringing together the people who generate evidence and those who can act on it. In practice, this means involving the people who will use or implement the research in shaping the research questions from the outset.<\/p>\n

Policymakers, researchers and agrifood organisations can work with farmers and other supply chain actors to co-develop interventions, rather than designing strategies for them. Farmers are central to production and post-harvest handling. They have detailed knowledge of the conditions under which losses can occur. That knowledge can reveal barriers that are not immediately visible in national statistics or technical assessments.<\/p>\n

A recent study<\/a> with rice, maize and cassava farmers in Ondo State, Nigeria, provides a useful example. Using focus group discussions, the study found that pests and diseases were the predominant agricultural challenges identified by participating farmers. This finding challenges an emphasis on technological solutions to food loss and points to the importance of including farmers\u2019 perspectives in policy and intervention design.<\/p>\n

It is also a reminder that food loss should not be treated as one generalisable problem. What affects rice may not affect maize in the same way. The constraints faced by farmers in one region may differ from those elsewhere. Interventions and policies therefore need to be responsive to particular crops, regions and stages of the supply chain, rather than relying solely on national averages.<\/p>\n

Co-production should extend beyond farmers, too. Researchers also need to understand why policymakers, businesses and other organisations do or do not use the evidence available to them.<\/a> Is the evidence available at the right time? Is it answering a practical decision? Are there financial, institutional or political barriers to acting on it? Does the proposed intervention fit existing systems and incentives?<\/p>\n

Closing the evidence-to-policy loop<\/h2>\n

Reducing the gap between evidence and action could be achieved by deliberately connecting research to decisions. Nigeria has an opportunity to move beyond repeatedly documenting the scale of food loss and towards a more deliberate cycle of evidence and action by mapping the current evidence base and identifying which pieces of evidence matter for specific decisions.<\/p>\n

The first step is to map what is already known. Which findings are robust? Where is the evidence consistent? And what does it tell us about where genuine knowledge gaps remain. For example, which regions, crops or stages of the supply chain remain under-studied?<\/p>\n

The second step is to identify what types of evidence are needed to change a policy, intervention or investment decisions. Are data on loss hotspots sufficient, or do policymakers also need evidence on specific barriers and the cost-effectiveness of potential interventions? What else might policymakers and agrifood actors need to know before they can commit resources to prevention or other solutions? Farmers, traders, businesses and policymakers should be involved early enough to help shape research questions and solutions.<\/p>\n

Finally, interventions should be evaluated and the results fed back into policy and practice. This creates a cycle in which research does not simply produce recommendations, but helps test what works, learn from what does not, and improve future decisions.<\/p>\n

Nigeria already knows that food loss is a significant problem. What it needs now are sharper answers to outstanding questions, a clearer understanding of where additional evidence would make a meaningful difference, and stronger mechanisms for relationships between researchers and those who can turn existing knowledge into practical solutions.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

About the author:<\/strong> Dr Ifeoluwa Abulude has a PhD in Agricultural Economics, Bioeconomy and Rural Development from Justus-Liebig University, Germany. He is currently based at the University of Cambridge where his work centres on agricultural sustainability and food loss reduction.<\/p>\n

All articles posted on this blog give the views of the author(s), and not the position of the IPR, nor of the University of Bath.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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