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Exploring the profitability of improved storage technologies and their potential impacts on food security and income of smallholder farm households in Tanzania

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Title Exploring the profitability of improved storage technologies and their potential impacts on food security and income of smallholder farm households in Tanzania
 
Creator Kotu, Bekele Hundie
Abass, A.
Hoeschle-Zeledon, Irmgard
Mbwambo, H.
Bekunda, Mateete A.
 
Subject maize
postharvest technology
 
Description This study assesses the profitability of selected improved grain storage technologies and the potential impact of their adoption on food security and income of smallholder maize producers in Tanzania. We used on-farm experiment data, time series maize price data, and household survey data to address the objectives. For the improved technologies, we considered Purdue Improved Crop Storage (PICS) bags, metallic silos of different sizes, and polypropylene (PP) bags treated with Actellic Super®. We compared them with PP bags without insecticide treatment as the control. Results show that PICS bags and PP bags plus Actellic Super are profitable in all locations and not significantly different. While the feasible period varies by location, profit is most likely negative if farmers sell their maize in the first two months after harvest and in the last two months before the next harvest. There are mixed results with regards to the profitability of metallic silos; bigger silos are profitable for farmers who have economies of scale to use them while smaller ones are profitable only within the context of higher grain price and bigger seasonal price gap. The results also show that PICS bags (or PP bags plus Actellic Super) are useful to address food security and income objectives among poor rural households whereas metallic silos with bigger storage capacity can increase the income of those farmers who have bigger surplus grain to sale.
 
Date 2019-06
2019-06-28T08:09:59Z
2019-06-28T08:09:59Z
 
Type Journal Article
 
Identifier Kotu, B.H., Abass, A., Hoeschle-Zeledon,I., Mbwambo, H. and Bekunda, M. 2019. Exploring the profitability of improved storage technologies and their potential impacts on food security and income of smallholder farm households in Tanzania. Journal of Stored Products Research 82, 98-109.
0022-474X
https://hdl.handle.net/10568/101932
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jspr.2019.04.003
NUTRITION & HUMAN HEALTH
SOCIAL SCIENCE & AGRICUSINESS
 
Language en
 
Rights CC-BY-NC-ND-4.0
Open Access
 
Format 98-109
 
Publisher Elsevier
 
Source Journal of Stored Products Research