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Silos: An efficient way of keeping harvests safely
A silo on a farm in Iowa, US. Ugandan farmers can also make use of silos as well as traditional means of storing harvests like granaries. Photo by Lominda Afedraru.
What you need to know:
A big part of yields are lost after the harvest mostly due to the way they are handled at that stage. Good storage helps reduce losses.
Post-harvest handling is a very important aspect of farming, whether it is at the commercial or subsistence level, and irrespective of whether it is in a developed country like the US or in a developing one like Uganda.
However, in the latter, like other developing countries, there is the issue of huge losses at that stage of production. One of the factors that contribute to these losses is the nature of storage and the conditions in which the harvests are kept.
Required standards
While there are challenges, from the farmers’ side as well as externally, it would seem that post-harvest handling should be given more focus at the various levels.
In Iowa State, in the US, as a case in point, postharvest handling is a major issue because every farmer must possess a number of silos depending on the size of the farm. The cooperative unions are also vigilant because most farmers sell their produce, mostly corn (maize) and soybean, through the unions.
Jeff Jones, manager of Heartland Cooperative, says most of the farmers take the postharvest process into account because the produce must be of required standards in terms of moisture content, damage and cleanliness to meet demands of the market.
On every farm
When the union receives corn, it is tested for moisture. The required moisture content is 18 per cent, which will be dried further because it can be stored safely for a period of one-and-a-half years in the silos.
Ran Heck, a farmer who grows both soybean and corn on 4,000 acres, says that in practice, almost every farmer in US must own silos on their farms as storage facility apart from the machinery such as tractors, seed planters and combine harvesters. The storage capacity of the silos may differ depending on the size of the farm.
For instance, a farmer growing either corn or soybean on a small scale will have one or two small silos on farm while those engaged in large-scale farming may own several large silos. Heck has a number of silos, each of which stores between 500,0000 to 600,000 bushels, this is about 12,700 to 15,240 metric tonnes.
Lessons to learn
“These silos have fans that blow cool air inside and these prevents insects from destroying the grains and we keep the seeds under 50 degrees during summer and we dry it to 15 per cent moisture content,” he said.
Most farmers own silos made out of iron sheets but the cooperative unions prefer concrete silos, which are better for temperature control and bigger storage capacity.
From Iowa, Ugandan farmers may need to learn some lessons to improve their post-harvest handling by owning simple storage facilities, including granaries, a traditional way of doing it.
Patrick Rubaihayo, professor emeritus of Makerere University, notes that in the past almost all those engaged in farming used to keep their food in granaries. This would provide food during lean times as well as seed for the next planting season.
During the colonial times, the government constructed houses at every gombolola (Sub-county) where farmers were asked store food collectively.
Change in culture
“If a farmer kept a tin of grain, mostly finger millet or sorghum, he or she would be required to pick this tin but replace it during harvest time. This activity would be inspected by the chiefs which worked well. It is upon the current government to sensitise farmers about the importance of keeping food in silos, which are affordable to them,” Rubaihayo adds.
He also expresses disappointment with the current kind of farming, where most of the produce is sold directly from the garden.
“It is now the women and children who end up suffering because the man will come home drunk and ask the woman to sell off everything in the garden and order her to give him the money for drinking alcohol leading to hunger and starvation in the home,” he said.
Eng Sedrick Mutyaba, in-charge of post-harvest programme at National Agricultural Research Laboratories Institute in Kawanda, is of a similar view.
He observes that the culture of storing food in granaries became extinct due to instability and war as well as thefts of produce. Now, people keep produce in their houses or sell it directly from the garden.
Adopting the technology
To fulfill their mandate, the postharvest unit is working on setting up community silos with support from Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) and the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Centre (CIMMYT). They started with Iganga, Masindi and Pader districts
So far, the team has trained a number of fabricators to make silos and they are encouraging farmers to purchase them to store their produce.
“The Americans are concerned about food security and income and they are focused that is why there is the tradition of keeping farm produce in silos. They also specialise on a particular crop unlike our farmers who grow all types of crops on a small piece of land,” he said.
But Mutyaba also notes a silver lining. He cites farmers in Kapchorwa who deal in maize, wheat and rice already have group storage facilities on a large scale. Also, there are farmers in other parts of the country adopting the technology but at a slower pace.
