Sayed Ali, an Egyptian villager in the Delta province of Beheira, is just one of 800 farmers and labourers in the region who benefit from a training program organized by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) in Egypt. This was set up in cooperation with the Ministry of Agriculture and Land Reclamation, to improve agricultural practices to prevent loss and waste along food value chains, while maintaining quality.

The training is part of the Food Loss and Waste Reduction and Value Chain Development for Food Security in Egypt and Tunisia project, which has been running for almost three years. The project will come to an end in September 2018. Experts delivered the trainings through a mix of theoretical and hands-on field demonstrations. They also focused on topics covering the entire food value chain, including pre-harvest factors affecting post-harvest loss, harvesting, sorting, grading, packaging, storage, food safety, quality control and marketing practices.

"I have learned how to care for my bushes and crops to reduce loss and waste," Ali told Xinhuanet while checking the grapes on his 12.5-hectare farm. He said losses and wastage used to cost him many US dollars each year. These are now almost reduced to zero after he carefully applied the directions of FAO experts. Many problems and diseases that used to hit his farm every year have also been effectively avoided. Ali hopes he could also start exporting his high-quality grapes, mainly to China which recently signed an agreement to import agricultural products from Egypt.