Crop harvest challenges among smallholder farmers

Yet the family’s small garden where she grows millet, maize, beans, and cassava is their source of food. Her husband tends to return home late from the village drinking joint and usually spends part of the day in bed due to the after effects of alcohol.
Food loss.

According to the Uganda Bureau of Statistics (UBOS) farmers in Uganda lose more than 30 percent of their crop every year to insects, birds, rodents, pests, mold, and moisture.

UBOS predominantly blames this amount of food loss on inadequate handling and storage of harvested crops. The loss is also attributed to lack of knowledge and insufficient technology adoption. 

Food is said to be lost when it is no longer fit for consumption due to spoilage, quality loss, nutrition loss, seed viability reduction, or commercial loss. Other losses are due to rain, running water, rodents, birds, and thieves.

How farmers make losses  

Charles Katabalwa, managing director of SAWA Agricultural Development Company Limited, Mpigi District, says food loss begins in the garden soon after the crops are ready for harvesting. 

“Many farmers wait until the crops are too dry and brittle,” he says. 
“In that state crops such as beans crack and open quite easily resulting in the spilling of grain to the ground. This coupled with the usually long distance from the garden to the store causes a lot of food loss because wherever the people carrying the  dry bean plants pass the grains keep dropping on the ground.” 

Best practices 
Katabalwa says farmers should avoid harvesting crops such as beans under the hot afternoon sun and rather do so early in the morning or late in the evening, towards sunset. 

He also emphasises timely harvesting as a means of avoiding food loss. Some farmers are not aware of the danger of exposing harvested fresh vegetables and fruits to the sun.

The vegetables wither and shrink and become unfit for human consumption. They are best protected by putting them under shade and covering them with green leaves or whatever appropriate material.

Storage challenges 

Katabalwa further says that most small scale farmers have no suitable stores for harvested crops. “Many will choose to keep harvested crops on the small space of their house verandas where rain and dew easily introduce moisture to them and degrade their quality,” he says.

He mentions that small scale farmers also tend to have small houses which they share with farmed animals such as goats, sheep, chickens and ducks. Such farmers are forced in many cases to keep their harvests in the houses.  
“When harvested food crops are kept in the farmers’ houses the animals and birds usually feed on them and this too is food loss. Keeping crops such as maize and groundnuts in the house attract rats which cause massive destruction to the crops,” Katabalwa says. 

Poor harvesting 

He further mentions poor threshing methods as another big cause of food loss. He said many small scale farmers use sticks to thresh crops like maize and beans and in the process they break up the grain into pieces. Yet grain buyers don’t like broken or damaged grain.

Katabalwa further says since small scale farmers are resource constrained, they don’t have such facilities as clean cemented ground in their compound where they can dry harvested crops. Tarpaulins are rather too expensive for them, especially when it is remembered that their harvests are normally small. 

“So quite often they end up spreading out grain on the bare ground from where it picks moisture and bad smells. There is also the risk of rain falling on them and domestic animals and birds walking over them, eating the crops and dropping excreta, hair, and feathers on them. Nobody wants to buy or to consume contaminated grain. The challenge is that it is the same crop farmers that are also encouraged to keep poultry and other livestock.”

Post-harvest losses

Various categories of crops are subject to different post-harvest losses.  Some crops such as dried maize, beans, and groundnuts tend to take longer to get spoiled and with extra care they may take up to five months or even longer. 

Dried coffee can also be stored for several months unless it is exposed to moist conditions. Yet root crops including cassava and sweet potato can be damaged and lost within a few days. Bulbs such as onions or garlic and rhizomes such as ginger may take a week or two or even longer. 

However most vegetables and fruits must be harvested and rushed to the market before they get damaged. The farmer must be careful how he uses tools like hoes and other sharp objects during harvesting.  

Cut wounds on potatoes, yams, or cassava may be enough to expose the crops to micro-organisms that cause quick rotting of the crops.

Harvesting fruits 

Some fruits including papaws and mangoes are harvested from tall trees. If they drop on the ground from high up they can be damaged.

To safely harvest such fruits it is advisable for the farmer to fix a net on a pole in such a way that a few mangos are picked at a time and that they are trapped in the net and brought down slowly to avoid dropping on the hard ground.

Safe storage of vegetables, fresh beans, and fruits will require refrigeration facilities. 

Yet, according to UBOS, the rate of access to hydroelectricity in the rural areas where most small scale farmers live is just 11 percent.

Quick transport to markets for smallholder farmers is normally limited to public transport means such as buses and mini-bus taxis and subject to weather conditions and state of the roads. 

During loading of fruits and vegetables such as eggplant, tomatoes, and cabbages on trucks some people carelessly step or sit on the bags and crates containing the items which cause losses. 
Advice 

To overcome perishable produce transportation problems farmers can work in groups and grow common crops. If for example some 50 smallholder farmers in a given area grow pineapples traders from Kampala and other far off urban centres can drive to the area in large trucks and buy the fruits from the farmers, right from their home area. 

Alternatively if the small-scale pineapple farmers form a cooperative society they can buy a truck to quickly transport their produce to far off markets. 

Farmers really need not keep their children out of school to protect their crops in the fields. It is possible to scare away wild birds and animals by use of traps and scarecrows. 

Farmers should as much as possible consult agricultural extension officers for guidance about the usage of pesticides and fungicides to protect their harvested crops from pests.