Post-harvest losses

Oct 19, 2007

GRACE Ineza, 40, owns an acre of land in Kisoro district and is considered to be one of the most successful farmers in her village. But in the last season’s sorghum harvest, she lost nearly half of what she reaped.

By Carol Natukunda

GRACE Ineza, 40, owns an acre of land in Kisoro district and is considered to be one of the most successful farmers in her village. But in the last season’s sorghum harvest, she lost nearly half of what she reaped.

“I cut the stems, tied them up in bundles and left them to dry in the field. When I went back, most of it had been eaten by rats and birds.

In our culture, when you want your sorghum to turn from red to black, it is put in a sack and kept in a moist place. I took mine to the river bank. When I went back, it had all been washed away!”

Ineza’s experience is typical of Ugandan farmers, who toil to produce food only to throw away a significant proportion.

About 5-15% of the cereals harvested either rot or are eaten by pests, according to statistics at the Kawanda Agricultural Research Institute. Post-harvest loss is even higher. For instance, 20-25% and over 35% of the cereals get spoilt after harvesting.
These losses are not limited to crops.

The Food and Agricultural Organisation estimates that in Uganda, approximately 27% of the milk produced is lost; 6% is wasted at the farm level, while 11% and 10% of production is either lost to spillage or spoilage during transport or marketing, respectively.

FAO estimates this loss to be $23m a year.

Experts blame these losses on poor storage and lack of proper technology for preserving food.
“Some farmers just uproot the crops, but never go back to check whether there is anything that has remained,” says Arinaitwe Rwakajara Katambuka, an official with the Uganda National Farmers Federation.

“Someone just puts the food in a sack and stores it anywhere and it is affected by moisture, weevils and so on.”

Farmers, however, blame the losses on natural calamities, pests, rodents, birds and theft.

In 2001, research scientists from Kawanda, Makerere University, and the Natural Resources Institute selected 120 banana farmers to talk about post-harvest losses. 81.5% of the farmers cited wind breakage as the main cause of loss, 36.1% cited theft and 35.2% ripening, while other losses were attributed to rodents.

Others blame poor transportation. “Whenever I am harvesting beans, I hire people to carry the harvest from the fields. The same happens when taking the produce to the market. Some times in the process, some seeds fall in mud and everything is wasted,”says Alex Womanya, a farmer in Mpigi.

“Sometimes matooke ripens before reaching the market.”

Statistics show that about 25% of the rural feeder roads are impassable during the rainy season.

In rural Uganda, markets generally lack essential facilities like all-weather structures, secure storage, safe water and healthy sanitation structures.

These amenities also have significant impact on the food.

What to do
-Go back to your garden after harvesting to find out if there is a bundle of beans or maize, that might have been accidentally forgotten in the fields. Sometimes, your workers may not care to do a good job for you.
-Harvest in time and don’t be tempted to “field-dry.” This will help you to guard against ripening of food while it is still in the garden.
-Ensure that you have a clean, dry store. In many cultures, most people have granaries, in which they store the food.
-Make use of improved storage structures such as brick silos.
-Use solar driers to preserve fruits that cannot be immediately marketed
-Fresh cassava can be stored longer when buried in moist saw dust.
-Chemical preservatives can be used to keep grain and legumes longer.

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