Farmers in tropical areas have long struggled to maximize their crop yields, but the strikes against them just continue to mount. To start with, they tend to lack storage and processing tools that industrialized countries take for granted — things like refrigeration, ovens, and grain elevators. On top of that, they’re working the land in places where climate change may already be wielding its effects, making disease, rainfall patterns, and crop yields less predictable.
Read the rest of Special Reporting Initiative Fellow Rachel Cernansky’s piece on food waste in Sub-Saharan Africa.