Impact of Farmers’ Storage Practices and Storage Hygiene on Grain Losses in Ethiopia

摘要

Cereal and grain legumes play a vital role in food security and as income sources for millions of people in Ethiopia. However, poor storage handling and storage pests lead to high postharvest loss. This study therefore assessed farmers’ storage practices and grain storage hygiene status in selected districts of Jimma, West Shoa, and East Wollega zones of southwestern Ethiopia. One district was selected from each zone based on their production potential of selected grain crops such as maize, sorghum, wheat, and fababean. Then, three Peasant Associations (PAs) were randomly selected from each district. For the survey, 377 households (HHs) were interviewed. The present study showed that farmers in the study areas stored their grains in different kinds of traditional structures, such as plastered gombisa (14.1%), unplastered gombisa (25.5%), gumbi (13.8%), polypropylene sacks (41.4%), and Purdue improved crop storage (PICS) bags (5.3%) and indicated that most farmers used polypropylene sacks followed by unplastered gombisa. On the other hand, most of farmer’s grain storage hygiene status was categorised as poor (50.7%) or very poor (33.3%). The results of this study demonstrate that the farmers use an inefficient storage facility and adopt poor hygiene practices, which predisposes the stored grains to insects and rodent attacks. Thus, there is a need to train farmers in storage hygiene and develop and disseminate efficient grain storage facilities to reduce loss in farmers ‘grain stores.