To get an idea of the scale of food losses, watch the infographic below as it slowly reveals the estimated magnitude and value of the postharvest food losses in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Data on the extent of postharvest losses are scarce.  In the case of cereal losses, one source of data is APHLIS (African Postharvest Losses Information System) which has a transparent method of loss calculation and avoids costly routine estimation.  It is described in the section on Quantification of losses.