We cannot expect mankind to change its eating habits overnight or "deny" them a balanced diet, sot it is evident that the agriculture and water sector have to join forces and drastically reduce the use of water to produce our future food requirements by at least 50 % dieticians, food industry, higher education and restaurants have to join forces and change the way we prepare food and eat.

Sub-Saharan Africa is changing. Population growth and climate changes have affected food and water available. This, and the expanding urbanisation have put further pressure on food and water security, in a region classified as one of the worlds poorest. Long draught and intense heavy rainfall destroys crops while urbanization leaves more people to be fed and less to produce. Much effort has been put in optimizing agricultural production; restore soil fecundity, and farming efficiency. However, increased agricultural production is not enough to improve and ensure proper food security in the developing countries. More than 50 % of the fruits and vegetables produced those regions are lost during transport. Postharvest handling is of central importance as urbanization and a globalization have changed the world market. Various techniques have been developed to minimize food losses during transportation. However, traditional methods have disadvantages and weaknesses and alternatives are much needed. This paper describes the potential of the ecological approaches. It describes the potential of one ecological and sustainable technique known as Biological control. The method is already widely used in farming practices around the world. The paper is especially focused on the importance of postharvest handling and it outlines the nature of problems associated with postharvest food losses, the causes of losses, and describes the most common methods used today to reduce postharvest loss, and the potential of biological control.

This study presents an evaluation of the food-energy-water nexus (FEWn), complemented by a thorough life cycle assessment (LCA), of four young cacao production systems: two full-sun monocultures and two agroforestry systems under conventional and organic management. Land footprint (LF) for food production, non-renewable cumulative energy demand (NR CED) for energy, total water footprint (TWF) for water, and three efficiency indicators for the FEWn were all analysed. In addition, ten LCA impact categories were evaluated in relation to two functional units (kilograms of cacao output and kilograms of total crop output, i.e., cacao þ other crops). The integrated analysis of the FEWn and the LCA framework reveals how agroforestry systems and organic management report better environmental performances for almost all indicators and impact categories considered, except for the TWF. However, given that the systems analysed have no irrigation, between 96.3% and 99.8% of the TWF corresponds to green water, i.e., soil moisture from precipitation. Green water has lower environmental impacts and opportunity costs than the water used to manufacture inputs (WFinput). Accordingly, when the efficiency of the nexus is measured in relation to the WFinput, organically managed systems produce more food/energy per unit of water used. Our results show how production diversification and organic and cultural management practices can improve energy efficiency and reduce the use of water associated with the inputs and, consequently, improve the nexus, as well as the rest of the environmental impacts analysed. The design of agricultural policies focused on sustainability should strongly favour the establishment of agroforestry systems, particularly those that are organically managed.

Food security, sustainable agriculture and forestry, marine and maritime and inland water research and the bioeconomy.