Abstract
In Ethiopia, postharvest losses, mainly storage losses by insects, are very critical problems in agricultural production systems. In particular, maize is highly susceptible to insect and pest attacks in the storage. These storage losses affect the livelihood of small-scale farmers by aggravating their food insecurity and reducing their household income. This critical problem forced the farmers to look forward modern storage technologies like Purdue improved crop storage (PICS) bags, but its adoption is considerably low in the study area. Therefore, the objectives of this study were to examine the determinants to use PICS bags for maize storage. Data were collected through semistructured questionnaire, group discussion, key informants, and direct observation. A total of 392 sample household heads were selected by simple random sampling techniques. Binary logistic regression model, descriptive statistics, and inferential statistics were employed to analyze the data. This study revealed that, about 58% of the respondents replied that the importance of PICS bags in reducing insect damage was high. The results of binary logit model also indicated that educational level, sex, awareness, training, accessibility, perception on the effect of pesticide, social responsibility, and total income of the household positively and significantly affect farmers’ decision to use PICS bags. Moreover, the price of PICS affects negatively and significantly. Therefore, policy makers have to give emphasis for this newly introduced storage technology to address storage loss problems by taking in to account these determinants.
Highlights
Purdue Improved Cowpea Storage technology was first developed by Purdue University/IRAD-Cameroon Cowpea Storage Project in the late 1980s by Professor Larry Murdock and his team, with support from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation [1]. is technology was originally created until the trademark “Purdue Improved Cowpea Storage” (PICS) for West and Central African cowpea farmers to protect against extremely destructive cowpea bruchids, which prevented resource-constrained farmers from long-term storage to capture price increases later in the marketing season
Around the end of 2013, SG-2000 Ethiopia began working with Purdue University to get a local manufacturer for PICS bags established in Ethiopia, and 5,000 PICS bags were manufactured in the country
Storage loss is perhaps the most persistent issues of maize production in Ethiopia, and it is more aggravating than it was ever previously. e majority of the respondents from nonusers of PICS packs (54%) have no any mindfulness about the general nature and utilization of PICS sack, and they did not utilize it ever, while the remainder of 46% of them have informed about PICS sacks yet they did not utilize; this is a result of various reasons especially because of the excessive cost of the sack and its poor accessibility. e extension work and awareness creation regarding PICS bags technology in the study area were very poor even the users of the PICS bags in study area were not well trained and empowered
Summary
Purdue Improved Cowpea Storage technology was first developed by Purdue University/IRAD-Cameroon Cowpea Storage Project in the late 1980s by Professor Larry Murdock and his team, with support from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation [1]. is technology was originally created until the trademark “Purdue Improved Cowpea Storage” (PICS) for West and Central African cowpea farmers to protect against extremely destructive cowpea bruchids, which prevented resource-constrained farmers from long-term storage to capture price increases later in the marketing season. Beginning in September 2015, SG-2000 Ethiopia started implementation of the PICS-3 project after signing a one-year agreement with Purdue University. Plan of the project was to implement PICS bags in 2,200 villages. Due to high demand and requests from government partner organizations, especially the Regional Agriculture and Natural Resource Bureaus, 3,155 villages have been reached by SG-2000 Ethiopia. Food and Agriculture Organization of United Nations (FAO) predicts that, about 1.3 billion tons of food are globally wasted or lost per year [2]. Reduction in these losses would increase the amount of food available for human consumption and enhance global food security. Various studies undertaken in Sub-Saharan Africa to estimate maize
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