Storage technology usage among maize farmers in Kwara State, Nigeria

Abstract

Efforts to increase food production to solve food insecurity have been sabotaged by a high level of post-harvest loss, considering agricultural production is seasonal. This study assessed storage technologies usage among maize farmers in Kwara State. A multistage sampling procedure was used to sample 238 maize farmers. Frequency, percentages, and Pearson Product-Moment Correlation were used to analyze and test for the relationship between the socio-economic characteristics of the farmers and the usage of improved maize storage technologies. Results revealed that about 88.2% and 50.4% of maize farmers used polythene bags and sourced their storage technology from the Nigerian Stored Products Research Institute (NSPRI), respectively.
The major challenge was the lack of finance to secure sophisticated technologies (WMS= 2.68). Furthermore, about 39.0 percent fell within the moderate level of use of improved maize storage technologies. There was a significant relationship between years of experience in farming (r =0.686), annual income (r=0.271) and size of land cultivated (r=0.294), and use of improved maize storage technologies. Farmers’ financial constraints and a lack of technological know-how of storage technologies impaired the use of improved storage technologies. Farmers should organize to form groups to access funds quickly