Post-harvest food losses in a maize-based farming system of semi-arid savannah area of Tanzania

By A. Abass, G. Ndunguru, P. Mamiro, Bamidele Alenkhe, N. Mlingi, M. Bekunda. 2014

392 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Abstract An assessment of post-harvest handling practices and food losses in a maize-based farming system in semi-arid areas of Central and Northern Tanzania was carried out in 2012. Seventeen crops were mostly cultivated by the farmers in the surveyed areas; maize (32%), sunflower (16%) and pigeon peas (12%) were the most cultivated while maize was the most stored. There are at least 7 months between two harvest seasons of each crop; while farmers sold the crops soon after harvest to cater for household expenditure (54%) and school fees (38%), the market prices increased significantly ( P ≤ 0.05) within six months of storage. Most processing activities (winnowing, dehulling, drying, sorting and shelling) were carried out manually, almost entirely by women, but mechanized processing for maize, sunflower, millet, and sorghum were commonly practiced. Quantitative post-harvest losses of economic importance occur in the field (15%); during processing (13–20%), and during storage (15–25%). The main storage pests responsible for the losses are larger grain borers ( Prostephanus truncatus ), grain weevils ( Sitophilus granarius ) and, the lesser grain borer ( Rhyzopertha dominica ). Most of the farmers considered changes in weather (40%), field damage (33%), and storage pests (16%) as the three most important factors causing poor crop yields and aggravating food losses. However, survey results suggest that the farmers' poor knowledge and skills on post-harvest management are largely responsible for the food losses. 77% of the surveyed farmers reported inadequate household foods and 41% received food aid during the previous year. Increasing farmers' technical know-how on adaptation of the farming systems to climate variability, and training on post-harvest management could reduce food losses, and improve poverty and household food security.

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Citations in the corpus

Reducing Postharvest Losses during Storage of Grain Crops to Strengthen Food Security in Developing Countries (2017, background): “PICS or Purdue Improved Crop Storage bags, originally developed for storage of cowpea, involve triple bagging the grains in hermetic conditions, and is widely used by farmers in sub-Saharan Africa.”
Agriculture Development, Pesticide Application and Its Impact on the Environment (2021, background): “Abass et al. (2014) [96] argue that in some situations, where rainfall may not adequately support crop growth, planting seeds close to the onset of rainfall does not guarantee good yields, thus possibly causing a change in pesticide application.”
An Overview of the Post-Harvest Grain Storage Practices of Smallholder Farmers in Developing Countries (2018, background): “Grain borers, such as the large grain borer (LGB) (Prostephanus truncatus), and grain weevils (Sitophilus granarius), are the main pests responsible for grain storage losses [4,36].”
Managing storage pests of maize: Farmers' knowledge, perceptions and practices in western Kenya (2016, background): “The damage levels reported in the current study coincide with those observed by other workers who reported that these pests caused significant yield losses >30% for weevils and >50% for the large grain borers (Abass et al., 2014).”