All post-harvest protection measures follow a simple principle:
Protecting harvested produce against loss is more meaningful than compensating for such loss by further increasing agricultural production.
This principle makes plain sense, for continuously raising production is only economically effective to a limited extent in view of the rising production costs in conjunction with diminishing yield gains. Moreover, food production requires considerable inputs in terms of finance and human resources, starting with the seed, cropping measures and plant protection through to the labour input required for harvesting and processing. Post-harvest losses destroy part of these investments.
Resource conservation considerations point in the same direction, as much of the utilizable farmland in Africa is under excessive pressure. This problem, however, is not the subject of our following discussion of the economic-effectiveness of post-harvest protection measures.