Browsing by Author "Swai, Jennifer"

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    Integrating storage structures and store time in maize grains postharvest losses evaluation in Northern Zone of Tanzania
    (INNSPUB, 2019-06-16) Swai, Jennifer; Mbega, Ernest; Mushongi, Arnold; Mwaijande, Violeth; Ndakidemi, Patrick
    Maize is the most important cereal crop in Tanzania, thus its postharvest losses are a big threat to food security. This study integrated maize store-time with five storage methods namely Perdue Improved Cowpeas Storage bags (PICS), Metal Drums, Kihenge, Polyethylene bags with insecticides and Polyethylene bags without insecticide. Trials were established following a randomized complete block design with five treatments at Kilimanjaro, Arusha and Manyara, and treatments were monitored for weevil’s infestation for six months consecutive. The results showed PICS bag was the most efficient storage method in minimizing insect damaged kernels as it only contributed to 1% of the insect damaged kernels, while other methods such as Metal drum, Kihenge Polyethylene bag with insecticide and Polyethylene bag without insecticide resulted in 4%, 23 %, 29%, and 43% insect damaged kernels respectively after six month store‒time. The correlation matrix showed similar results with coefficients of correlation‒0.378, ‒0.272, 0.045, 0.037 and 0.516 respectively. With regards to store- time PICS bag and Metal drum had the lowest number of insect damage throughout six-month store-time. Polyethylene bag with insecticide was able to keep the kernel insect free only for three months while Polyethylene bag without insecticide kept grains free of weevil infestation only for one. There was no suggesting time to store grains using Kihenge due to its fewer numbers of observations
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    Maize store‒time marketing model for northern zone of Tanzania
    (NM-AIST, 2019-04) Swai, Jennifer
    This study was carried out to create a marketing model that integrate maize store-time with five storage methods namely Perdue Improved Cowpeas Storage bags (PICS), Metal Drums, Kihenge, Polyethylene bags with insecticides and Polyethylene bags without insecticide. Trials were established following a randomized complete block design with four replications in Kilimanjaro, Arusha and Manyara regions, and treatments were monitored for weevil‟s infestation for six months consecutive. The results showed PICS bag was the most efficient storage method in minimizing insect damaged kernels as it only contributed to 1% of the insect damaged kernels, while other methods such as Metal drum, Kihenge, Polyethylene bag with insecticide and Polyethylene bag without insecticide resulted in 4%, 23 %, 29%, and 43% insect damaged kernels respectively. The correlation matrix showed similar results with coefficients of correlation of ‒0.378, ‒0.272, 0.045, 0.037 and 0.516 respectively. With regards to store-time PICS bag and Metal drum had the lowest number of insect damage throughout six-month store-time. Other methods such as Polyethylene bag with insecticide was able to keep the kernel insect free only for three months while Polyethylene bag without insecticide kept grains free of weevil infestation only for one month. The results also indicated that there was a significant relationship between marketing channels and income gained by the household with P-value = 0.04. Average store-time for the majority of the respondents was six months. This study recommends not more than seven month store-time for household income optimizations.
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    Post-harvest losses in maize store-time and marketing model perspectives in Sub-Saharan Africa
    (Academic Journals, 2019-01-31) Swai, Jennifer; Mbega, Ernest; Mushongi, Arnold; Ndakidemi, Patrick
    Post‒harvest losses of maize are almost half of the produced grains in Sub‒Saharan Africa. Efforts to reverse this trend are recommended. Thus, there is a prerequisite to create a post‒harvest loss resilient strategy to guide small scale maize growing farmers in Africa. In this review, critical elements underlying post‒harvest losses in Africa such as infestation by insect‒pests, microbes, rodents, poor transportation infrastructure, poor storage facilities, injudicious store‒time and unjustified marketing models have been discussed. Furthermore, we have proposed options for mitigating the post‒harvest damage by highlighting possible pathways for farmers’ friendly resilient strategies and areas needing research to eventually minimize post‒harvest losses of maize in Sub Saharan Africa