CRS, Partners, Act to Reduce Post-harvest losses

By GLORIA SIWISHA

CROP production is a major source of livelihood for most rural households in Eastern Province.

However, experts in the region estimate that between 20 to 40 percent of this produce is lost through post-harvest losses or those food losses that occur across the food supply chain from harvesting of crop until its consumption.

For example, World Food Programme (WFP) studies quote maize post-harvest losses in Zambia as being at 11% at harvesting; 8% at storage, 2% at transportation, 1% at processing, 1% packaging, and 2% at sales.

Losses occur due to a number of reasons, among them, the inadequate storage facilities; poor handling, pests and diseases, and lack of enough labor to harvest and transport crops.

Post-harvest losses, it is argued, disrupt food security efforts of smallholder farmers, and can act as a deterrent to their continued involvement and investment in agriculture.

It’s because of the status quo that the Catholic Relief Services (CRS), working with the Zambia Agriculture Research Institute (ZARI), Caritas Zambia, the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), and Purdue University of USA, is promoting the use of hermetic storage bags also known as Purdue Improved Crop Storage (PICs) bags, among smallholders in Chipata, Kasenengwa, and Lundazi districts of Eastern Province.

CRS Director of Agriculture and Livelihood Douglas Mwasi said in an interview that the goal of the project was to reach 10,000 smallholder farmers in the three operational districts before the end of the project this year.

He said the project had been executed for two agricultural seasons and was expected to conclude this September.

A PICS bag is a triple layer bag composed of two polyethylene liners that are fitted into a third outer layer – a woven sack, to enable farmers store a variety of grain and seed for more than year after harvesting.

“Currently farmers are using traditional methods of storing grain but in addition to that, we are bringing this technology as an alternative method of storing grain and seed. If a farmer does not properly store grain, there’s a possibility of losing between 20 to 35 percent of the harvest,” Mr Mwasi said.

Recently, during the “Opening of the bags ceremony for those farmers that stored last season’s produce in PICs bags”, Caritas Chipata director Fr. Bernard Kaluba Zulu emphasized that improved storage facilities were needed in the province as traditional storage was largely in- effective.

“Great weight loss and damage caused by insects and weevils in these ordinary bags that technically are called poly-propylene bags is significantly higher than in hermetic bags. Research has proved that the percentage of damaged grains after twelve months of storage is nearly 30 times higher in these ordinary bags than in hermetic bags,” Fr. Zulu said.

The Provincial Agricultural Coordinator Adreen Nansungwe urged smallholder farmers to work as cooperatives in order to make accessibility of PICS bags easier.

“Access to improved storage facilities remains one of greatest challenges facing smallholder farmers in Eastern Province today and this compromises household food security. If they worked as organized groups, it would be much easier and cheaper to access PICS bags,” said Dr Nansungwe in a speech read for her by the Provincial Agricultural Information Officer Chisombu Dyaunka.

About 15 farmers participated in the opening of the PICS bags ceremony which was held under the theme: Embracing climate smart storage technology for improved food security and safety, seed access, and incomes.

Mary Tembo, a smallholder lead farmer of Shamombo agriculture camp in Kasenengwa, stored last season’s maize grain in a 100 Kilogram PICS bag and testified of the benefits of using improved storage facilities.

“My maize grain was not a 100% clean as it had been infested with weevils at the time of putting it inside the PICS bags on 15 th September, 2023. Today I can testify that all the weevils have died, an indication that grain weevils cannot survive in hermetic bags when they properly sealed,” she said.

Kennedy Phiri of Chipembele camp said PICS bags were a simple and cost-effective way of storing maize without having to use chemicals to control weevils that usually attack grain after harvest.

“We don’t fumigate the maize that we store in PICS bags and yet it remains safe for a long period of time. This is cost -effective for smallholder farmers and also good for our health, because the use of chemicals to control pests after harvest leads to a number of health complications in communities especially where a family chooses to open a bag and consume the maize earlier than the expiration date of the chemicals used to fumigate it,” he said.

Another farmer Rhoda Banda of Chifeya village in Kasenengwa said the hermetic bags safely stored grain and seed and thus should made readily available for farmers and at a price that they could easily afford.

PICS bags are bags developed by Purdue University that use hermetic storage technology to reduce post-harvest losses of cereals or legume seed.

They consist of two inner layers of polyethylene liners and one outer layer of woven polypropylene.

Each layer is closed separately to create a hermetically sealed container for harvested grain or seed.

This oxygen-deprived environment kills grain or legume weevils, and other post-harvest pests, and thus deemed effective in reducing post-harvest losses.