As the sun dips below the horizon on the eve of a market day, the hustle and bustle of Lagos’ Mile 12 market has settled.
Among the few remaining traders in the market is Faruk Mohammed, who sells fruits and vegetables in one of the open stalls in the fruit section. He shared his challenges with storing his products and keeping them fresh.
“I sell broccoli, watermelon, chilli peppers, and other perishable goods. Before this time, some of these goods would spoil quickly because they are fruits with a short shelf life. When that happened, I had to separate the spoiled ones from the good ones, leading to significant losses,” Faruk stated.
Another fruit vendor in the market, Haliru Abdulsalam, shared a similar concern. He stated that he often incurs losses when his fruits and vegetables become wilted and lose their freshness after being stored for days without proper preservation.
Haliru said, “If my goods are kept for over two to three days without proper preservation, they start to lose their freshness and become spoiled.”
These are the common challenges faced by traders and farmers dealing with fruits and vegetables in Nigeria.
In Nigeria, post-harvest loss accounts for about 30% to 50% of crops, especially fruits, vegetables, and other tuber crops.
This is because fruits and vegetables are highly perishable and have a shorter shelf span than other crops, like grains or legumes, because of their higher water content and susceptibility to microbial degradation.
The erratic power supply in farming communities in rural Nigeria and some parts of urban areas makes adopting cold storage facilities to preserve perishable crops difficult for smallholder farmers and businesses.
Post-harvest loss occurs during any of the various stages of the post-harvest system. It ranges from transportation hazards to poor storage techniques.
Businesses that handle fruits and vegetables often face losses because they lack adequate cold storage facilities to preserve their products before and aftermarket sales.
The huge harvest loss, along with other systemic issues in Nigeria’s agricultural sector, consequently creates erratic food availability in the country, exacerbating food insecurity among the teeming population.
A report by the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO) on the state of food security and nutrition in the world reveals that the number of people experiencing severe food insecurity in Nigeria has risen over the past 10 years from 20.3 million between 2014/16 to 49.4 million between 2021/23.
Farmers and actors in the perishable goods sector continue to experience severe post-harvest loss as the scale of production increases, hence there is an urgent need to address post-harvest loss first to protect farmers’ production costs and increase food availability.
Green Solution to Post-Harvest Loss
Modern techniques for food storage and preservation, such as refrigeration and freezing, are effective in extending the shelf life of perishable items. However, these techniques can be difficult to utilise in countries with unstable power grids like Nigeria, where approximately 40% of the population lacks reliable access to electricity.
Leading the way in addressing this challenge is an affordable and eco-friendly solution by a clean tech company in Nigeria, Ecotutu, to enhance cold storage access for small-scale farmers and businesses in the fruits and vegetables sector.
The Co-founder of Ecotutu, Michael Akinsete, noted, “During our preliminary research, we found out that food was going to waste in volumes to the tune of about 50% post-harvest loss especially fruits and vegetables in Africa, even in Nigeria.
People complain food is expensive, there’s no food in the market and some people are malnourished. And every year we hear the inputs being allocated to production. This realisation formed the basis of the idea behind Ecotutu, to facilitate efficient food storage, especially the most vulnerable of the food value chain, which is horticulture, fruits, and vegetables.”
The company’s business model features a “cooling as a service” model, allowing customers to use the cold room on a pay-as-you-chill basis, with a cost of N250 per crate for storing fruits and vegetables.
The second aspect of its services is outright deployment, which involves helping interested businesses to set up cold storage hubs at a location.
Additionally, they offer logistics support with the Ecotutu FreshBox, designed to preserve temperature-sensitive products such as beef, seafood, ice cream, vaccines, and produce during transportation. This FreshBox can be adapted for use on motorbikes to facilitate convenient transport. Other cooling products offered include Ecotutu Cooler Bags and Ice Cells used for on-the-go cooling to cool parfait and salad for picnics and related events.
At the time of the interview, the company had a solar-powered cold room at Mile 12 market, Lagos State, featuring two compartments for storing protein and horticultural products. Additionally, the company manages cold rooms in Sabon Gida, Nasarawa State, and Awowo, Ogun State with a total capacity of over 38,000 tonnes.
The cold room utilises a phase change cooling technology, where cold temperatures are absorbed by the Phase Change Material (PCM), causing it to transition from a clear liquid to an opaque solid. As the PCM absorbs latent heat, it begins transferring the cold temperature to the environment.
The Head of Operations, Adejoke Nofiu, explained “Our cooling system relies on phase change technology. Sunlight is captured and directed into a box where it creates ice. This ice is then used to cool the storage room, Ms Nofiu stated.”
Minimising Loss and Maximising Value
Insufficient preservation of fruits and vegetables can result in reduced quality and financial losses for the farmer or vendor involved. However, with Ecotutu’s cold room at the Mile12 market, fruit vendors who use the service can reduce their losses and increase their profits.
Al Musa Niman, one customer who uses the cold room, noted that his fruits stay fresh whenever he stores them there. “This has significantly reduced the amount of my goods that would have gone to waste” Musa stated.
Haliru Abdulsalam, another fruit seller also mentioned that before the cold room was introduced, he didn’t use cold storage for his goods, which led to greater losses.
“Now that I use the cold room, it has boosted the profits I earn from my goods.”
Faruk Mohammed stated, “When I store my goods in the cold room and retrieve them the next day, I sell them to my customers while it is still cold, and they often comment on how strong and fresh the items look. After being introduced to cold storage by Ecotutu, although the service comes with a fee, the amount of my goods that go to waste has decreased by 20%.”
Solution amidst Barriers
In the course of providing solutions to the challenges of post-harvest loss in Nigeria, Ecotutu affirmed the presence of certain barriers that have undermined its activities over time.
One major challenge that was highlighted is the business climate in Nigeria — characterised by currency instability, insecurity, and other challenges.
“The naira is not stable and we imported about 25% of the components of our solution. We have a partnership with the German company that manufactures our cooling technology and whenever we need this component, we have to import them to meet the needs of the customer or a market deployment need. The fluctuation of the naira can pose a challenge sometimes in terms of access to finance,” the co-founder of Ecotutu stated.
“Another one that I would have mentioned, but I noticed that the government is moving in that direction is creating an enabling environment for collaborations between stakeholders within the sector that brings the solutions into the same room and layered in certain areas in different contexts. I think that’s more of the things that the government can do beyond also making the economy viable for small businesses like ourselves,” Mr Akinsete added.
Experts React
Dataphyte spoke with a Value Chain Development Expert, Adekunle Adeoye on the challenges of post-harvest loss and its impact on Nigeria’s agricultural sector.
Mr Adekunle highlighted that post-harvest loss remains a significant challenge in Nigeria. He explained that while there are frequent reports of tomato scarcity, vast quantities of tomatoes are simultaneously left to rot in other markets and farms. This waste largely results from insufficient storage and processing infrastructure across the country.
He stated, “To effectively tackle post-harvest loss, the government must collaborate with the private sector and create a conducive environment for developing business models that can address gaps in the food storage and preservation value chain.
“The business idea of Ecotutu is innovative, but they can’t do it alone and there are only a few key players in the cold storage sector. Hence the need for concerted efforts from the government and the private sector to ensure that cold storage infrastructure is strengthened across the country including farm settlements to further enhance the culture of storage and food preservation.”
Mr Adekunle further reiterated that the government should look into making the business climate more attractive and conducive to investment opportunities by providing incentives and reducing barriers to entry.
Babatunde Olarewaju, the Lead Strategist at Futux Agri-consult Ltd, explained that the limited adoption of new solutions can sometimes reduce their effectiveness. He emphasised that the interests of the intended users (in this case, farmers) should guide any innovation designed by the private sector to ensure widespread adoption and meaningful change.
He further stated, “An average farmer, who may be older and less educated, is likely to be skeptical of any new innovation. An innovator can gain farmers’ trust by delivering the message through familiar channels, such as a community leader or a local farmers’ association.”
With food inflation in the country at record highs, every aspect of the problem – from insecurity to low yields and post-harvest losses – must be tackled. Reducing post-harvest losses is critical in stabilising food prices year-round and giving Nigerians relief from rising costs on every side. It is in the interest of every Nigerian that solutions developed to tackle these losses can scale easily with support from local, state and federal governments.
The stability of the country depends on it.