The contribution of storage insect pests to food insecurity of Africa

More than half of Africans get their livelihood from agriculture, which is also the most important enterprise and key to their economic development. Paradoxically, tropical African countries including Ethiopia are among the world leaders in food insecurity. This is not only because of inadequate food production, but also losses of grain in the pre-harvest, harvest and post-harvest stages, of which, significant volumes are lost after harvest, aggravating hunger and resulting in expensive inputs being wasted. The major factors that contribute for such losses are insect pests. However, this crucial area has been neglected over the past decades than increment in production which had got more focus. Thus, such vital area has to get great attention by researchers, policy makers and any concerned bodies so as to address food insecurity problem of poor farmers in Sub-Saharan Africa including Ethiopia.