The Role of Postharvest Technologies in Reducing the Loss of National Resources

Food loss is commonly viewed as a “product” problem: a quantity of fruit or vegetables that never reaches the market. From a macroeconomic perspective, however, every tonne of lost produce represents a bundle of national resources already consumed in its production—fresh water, agricultural land, machinery fuel, cold-storage electricity, and hours of human labor. Postharvest technologies, from active packaging to the cold chain, help keep these resources within the economic cycle rather than merely extending a product’s shelf life.

1. Food Loss: A Hidden Consumer of National Resources

When officials from Iran’s Ministry of Agriculture Jihad report that nearly 33% of the country’s agricultural and food products are lost along the chain from production to consumption [1], this figure should be considered alongside estimates that put the water wasted as a result of these losses at 6.3–9.3 billion cubic metres per year. Put simply, billions of cubic metres of water used for cultivation in a country facing structural water stress are lost irretrievably with produce in storage or transit. The country has already paid for the water, land, and energy used to produce these goods, only for those resources to be discarded without generating a return.

2. The Cold Chain: Where National Resources Leak Away

A substantial portion of these losses can be traced to a specific problem: inadequate refrigeration infrastructure. Specialist assessments indicate that when 30–50% of Iran’s fruit and vegetables are lost before reaching consumers because of an inefficient cold chain, this occurs alongside exports of nearly 9.4 million tonnes of agricultural products worth approximately $7.57 billion [2]. In other words, the country is exporting valuable goods and earning foreign currency, while every unit of produce lost along the way directly undermines its competitiveness and export earnings.

The problem is not simply the number of cold-storage facilities. An ageing fleet of refrigerated road vehicles, the absence of refrigerated railcars in the country’s rail transport system—even though rail is considered a backbone of low-cost, safe transport for perishable goods in modern logistics—and recurring disruptions to the cross-border cold chain are among the main causes of this resource leakage [3]. Even when importing products such as bananas, a shortage of refrigerated containers can force goods to be unloaded at the border, compromising quality. As a result, the final price paid by consumers can reach two to three times the global price [4].

An even more important economic issue is that this weakness perpetuates a vicious cycle: official rates for services at domestic cold-storage facilities are set far below global rates—close to $2 for comparable units [5]. The result is low profitability for cold-storage businesses, discouraging many operators from expanding or even continuing their activities. In other words, investment incentives weaken precisely where the country most needs infrastructure investment.

3. Postharvest Technology: Keeping Resources in the Economic Cycle

This is where postharvest technologies—from managing ethylene and oxygen in active packaging to humidity control and refrigerated supply chains—must be viewed as more than tools for “extending shelf life.” Every additional day that a product remains marketable represents a share of the water, land, energy, and labor used to produce it being saved; otherwise, those resources would be lost without recovery. For this reason, the reduction of postharvest losses is sometimes described in resource economics as “virtual production”: without adding a hectare of land or a cubic metre of water, preventing losses makes the equivalent of additional production available to the market.

This approach is especially important for exports. When an ethylene absorber or humidity-control solution in packaging extends a shipment’s storage life by several days, those days may make the difference between a product arriving safely at the border or export market and arriving in poor condition. In this way, active preservation technologies can help protect the country’s approximately $7.5 billion in agricultural exports from risks associated with weaknesses in the cold chain.

4. The Global Picture: Food Loss, Natural Resources, and Climate

This issue is not unique to Iran. According to the 2024 Food Waste Index Report, food loss and waste account for 8–10% of global greenhouse-gas emissions and use approximately 30% of the world’s agricultural land—land that has been cultivated, irrigated, and harvested without the resulting food ultimately being consumed [6]. A joint study by the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) and Tesco estimated that around 2.5 billion tonnes of food are lost on farms or along the supply chain each year, equivalent to nearly 40% of global production. This is substantially higher than the earlier FAO estimate of 1.3 billion tonnes, or approximately 33% [7].

The connection between food loss and natural resources is also reflected in global policy projections. The joint FAO–OECD Agricultural Outlook to 2033 estimated that halving food loss and waste across the food chain—from farm to consumer—could reduce agricultural greenhouse-gas emissions by 4% and reduce the number of undernourished people worldwide by up to 153 million [8]. These figures show that reducing postharvest losses is not merely a commercial or agricultural decision; it is also a national-resource and climate policy priority.

5. Why Investing in Preservation Means Investing in National Resources

The overall picture leads to a clear policy conclusion: every rial invested in postharvest technologies—active packaging, atmosphere control, and an efficient cold chain—is effectively an investment in preserving the country’s water, land, energy, and foreign-exchange earnings. Adjusting cold-storage service rates to reflect international standards, developing refrigerated road and rail fleets, and expanding the use of active-packaging solutions on farms and in storage facilities are three key areas that could turn a substantial share of the 33% loss rate into effective production and more resilient exports—without requiring a single additional drop of water or a single extra hectare of land.

Reducing postharvest losses is a way to increase the amount of food actually available to the country without increasing water or land use.

Conclusion

Looking at postharvest losses only through the lens of “lost product” provides an incomplete picture. Every tonne of fruit or vegetables lost in storage or transit also takes a bundle of national resources with it: water, land, energy, foreign exchange, and labor. Postharvest technologies—from active packaging to cold-chain infrastructure—help close this resource leak. In a country facing structural water stress and a strong need to earn foreign currency through exports, investment in these technologies should be viewed not as a secondary expense, but as one of the most effective tools of national-resource policy.