Abstract We study post-harvest losses (PHL) in important and rapidly growing rural–urban value chains in Ethiopia. We analyze self-reported PHL from different value chain agents – farmers, wholesale traders, processors, and retailers – based on unique large-scale data sets for two major commercial commodities, the storable staple teff and the perishable liquid milk. Aggregate PHL over all segments of the value chain (farmer to retailer) in the most prevalent marketing channel for teff and milk amount to between 2.2 and 3.3 percent and 2.1 and 4.3 percent of total produced quantities, respectively. Estimates of PHL from this research are found to be lower than is commonly assumed. We complement these findings with primary data from urban food retailers for more than 4,000 commodities. We find that the emerging modern retail sector in Ethiopia is characterized on average by half the level of PHL than is observed in the traditional retail sector. This is likely due to more stringent quality requirements in procurement systems, to sales of more packaged – and therefore better protected – commodities, and to better refrigeration, storage, and sales facilities. The further expected expansion of modern retail in these settings should therefore likely lead to a lowering of PHL in food value chains, at least at the retail level.

中文翻译：

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城乡价值链中的收获后损失：来自埃塞俄比亚的证据

摘要 我们研究了埃塞俄比亚重要且快速增长的城乡价值链中的收获后损失 (PHL)。我们基于两种主要商业商品（可储存的主要画眉草和易腐烂的液态奶）的独特大规模数据集，分析了来自不同价值链代理（农民、批发贸易商、加工商和零售商）的自我报告 PHL。在画眉草和牛奶最流行的营销渠道中，价值链所有环节（农民到零售商）的总 PHL 分别占总产量的 2.2% 和 3.3% 以及 2.1% 和 4.3%。发现来自这项研究的 PHL 估计值低于通常的假设。我们用来自城市食品零售商的 4,000 多种商品的原始数据补充了这些发现。我们发现埃塞俄比亚新兴的现代零售业的 PHL 水平平均是传统零售业的一半。这可能是由于采购系统中更严格的质量要求、更多包装（因此受到更好保护）的商品的销售，以及更好的冷藏、储存和销售设施。因此，这些环境中现代零售业的进一步预期扩张可能会导致食品价值链中 PHL 的降低，至少在零售层面。