Pre-harvest crop losses
Within the discipline of plant protection; if you do not take proper care of your crops, 32% of the crops in the field will be damaged by weed damage, 22% by insect damage, 14% by diseases and become unusable, leaving you with only 32%. These are, of course, average figures, or in the case of complete neglect, even one of these factors can easily increase your loss to 100%.
Storage pests
The environments where fresh fruit and vegetables are stored are invaded by many harmful microorganisms, both from the field and from the storage area. These harmful molds and bacteria can cause serious product losses.
Post-harvest crop losses
In developing countries, post-harvest losses in fresh fruits and vegetables are very high at rates of 20% - 30%. Fresh fruits and vegetables are preferred by consumers because they have the highest nutritional content. However, fresh fruits and vegetables are usually stored both to balance the supply to the market and for other processes such as ripening.
Financial loss
When the labor and investments spent due to post-harvest processes such as sorting, packaging, transportation and storage until a product reaches "from field to fork" are taken into account cumulatively, the economic cost of storage diseases is greater than the economic cost of field diseases.