Abstract
Reducing post-harvest storage losses creates opportunities for smallholder households to increase incomes and food security (Brander et al., 2021; Huss et al., 2021). Though simple, locally produced and affordable hermetic storage bags exist that minimize storage losses, their adoption among smallholders remains low (Channa et al., 2019). The limited adoption of hermetic storage bags is especially puzzling as their costs are relatively low (at about 2 USD per 100kg bag) and their effectiveness in reducing post-harvest storage losses has been thoroughly demonstrated (e.g. Likhayo et al., 2016; Ndegwa et al., 2016). This raises important questions on what kind of constraints smallholder farmers may face that limit their investments in hermetic storage, and hence constrain adoption. Currently, there is virtually no empirical evidence in this regard (Sheahan & Barrett, 2017).
In principle, hermetic storage solutions can provide economic benefits directly, through the value of abated losses, and, indirectly, through selling at better prices. The ability to store safely for an extended period of time gives farmers well desired autonomy to decide how much of their produce they would like to sell at which point in time, with sales in the lean season typically being associated with higher prices (Kaminski et al., 2016). In turn, farmers can keep and store food when prices are low - often at harvest.
Though hermetic storage solutions are generally low-cost, the required investment to adopt hermetic storage may still be considered substantial by resource-scarce smallholder farmers, who can only afford such expenses, if their investment pays off in due time. In addition to such financial constraints, the majority of smallholder farmers face liquidity constraints at the time the investment has typically to be made. Farmer’s risk perception is an associated, but central hurdle to adoption. It is inherently difficult for farmers unfamiliar with hermetic storage to judge the expected benefits and outweigh opportunities against the costs, in particular where no prior experience exists (e.g., from relatives or neighbours). Farmers may hence overstate the risks, and understate the benefits of investing in improved storage.
This project aims to analyse the role of these potential barriers relating to farmer’s (i) financial constraints, (ii) liquidity constraints, and (iii) risk perception with regards to the adoption of hermetic storage bags.