On a hot weekend in February, Shamim Daudi sits down with farmer after farmer near Babati, Tanzania, to talk with them about the way they store their corn. The organization she works for, the Swiss development group Helvetas, has been researching ways to help reduce the percentage of crops that farmers in Tanzania and across Africa lose to pests and mold. Up to 18 percent of all cereal crops and more than a third of fruits, vegetables, roots, and tubers in sub-Saharan Africa are wasted before they ever reach a consumer.
Read the rest of Special Reporting Initiative Fellow Rachel Cernansky’s piece on food waste in Sub-Saharan Africa.