Systemic Post-Harvest Losses: Decolonizing Food Value Chains Through Indigenous Knowledge, Infrastructure Equity, and Market Reform
Original framing: “One third of food is lost or wasted: how to help farmers cut post‑harvest losses” — bing news
Women farmers in Nigeria’s *Yoruba* communities report that FLW increases during droughts because they lack access to drought-resistant seed varieties, yet their knowledge of *flood-tolerant* crops is ignored in policy. In *Bangladesh*, *Dalit* communities use *biochar* to preserve food, but patent laws prevent them from scaling this practice. Marginalized groups also face digital exclusion, limiting their access to market platforms that could reduce FLW. Their voices are absent from the 'farmer-centric' discourse, which often conflates smallholders with corporate agribusinesses.
The post-harvest loss crisis is not a technical failure but a *structural contradiction* embedded in colonial trade regimes, neoliberal agriculture, and climate injustice.
Indigenous knowledge systems—like the *Andean chacra* or *Haudenosaunee three-sister farming*—demonstrate that FLW reduction is possible without Western infrastructure, yet these solutions are suppressed by patent laws and land dispossession. The trickster reveals that corporations profit from the very waste they now claim to combat, while marginalized farmers bear the brunt of climate shocks that increase losses. Future pathways must integrate *climate-resilient infrastructure* (e.g., hermetic bags), *market democratization* (farmer-owned platforms), and *cultural reparations* (restoring communal land rights) to break this cycle. The synthesis points to *La Via Campesina’s* *Food Sovereignty* model as a blueprint: combining Indigenous stewardship, cooperative economics, and political advocacy to turn FLW from a global crisis into a justice issue.