by Casey Cheng and Kari A. Wozniak If you were going to invest resources into reducing postharvest losses within a supply chain, where exactly would you invest them? Would you begin with building better storage, or perhaps buying a mechanical drier? These types of questions face farmers, managers, and practitioners around the world, and yet […]
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Loss-Free Agriculture – Science or an Art?
by Steve Sonka, Ag Economist & Research Professor at the ADM Institute In early May 2014, I was asked to speak at the 2nd Annual UN FAO SAVE FOOD Congress in Dusseldorf, Germany, on the suggested topic, “Agricultural Management: The Art of Loss Free Agriculture”. That title caused me to reflect on where I learned about […]
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Are Farmers with Postharvest Loss Acting Rationally?
by Steve Sonka, Ag Economist Events vs. Structure External observers of postharvest loss in developing countries typically have little difficulty identifying loss and waste. Indeed each winter the ADM Institute contributes to the travel funding for University of Illinois business and agricultural engineering students to study in rural India. The resulting student blogs (see one […]
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Innovations through Partnerships: How We’ll Feed More with Less
by Steve Sonka You likely wouldn’t meet Randall Hogan, the CEO of Pentair, at the Borlaug Dialogue where scientists, researchers, and practitioners gather to discuss today’s most pressing challenge—how to feed more with fewer resources. Yet this morning, I found myself forwarding an interview about Hogan’s new corporate strategy to my colleagues and co-hosts of […]
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Postharvest Loss and the Power of 3
by Kari A. Wozniak As of late this summer, the ADM Institute is a partner of an innovative initiative called “The Power of 3: Food, Water, and Energy”, with the Institute of Food Technologists (IFT) and others. This partnership unites the strengths of industry and academia behind a science-based effort to develop cross-cutting solutions for […]
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Sustainable Prevention of Postharvest Loss
by Steve Sonka When it comes to preventing postharvest loss, we know certain things. We know that reliable data is lacking, and that measurement is key to overcoming the data impediment. We also know that historically, data has been too expensive to gather, although with 21st century technology there is opportunity for innovation that can […]
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Innovation in Measurement: Perspective and Practice
by Steve Sonka Growing up on an Iowa dairy farm, I was introduced to the need to measure, even if informally, at an early age. In those days, we had to carry the (hopefully full) bucket of milk from the cow to the can where we collected the milk. Doing that, it was fairly easy […]
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Food Security, Postharvest Loss, and Henry Kissinger
by Steve Sonka The issue of global food security has recently reemerged as an important societal concern. Factors such as the prospect of needing to feed an additional two billion people in the next two or three decades, the presence today of nearly 870 million people who are chronically hungry, and the recent social unrest […]
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