Staple grain storage: Difference between revisions

Can Adapting Storage replace Agricultural AID? --WTLanier (talk) 17:11, 3 February 2014 (PST)
Brief
It is easy to read how African staple grain and pulse value chains are weak from Postharvest loss (PHL). Even though solutions to PHL are available, smallholder growers suffer inputs that only increase production. Postharvest loss wastes crops —and related inputs, especially the labor that contributed to producing the wasted crop.

Lacking Land tenure smallholders must suffer PHL, sell into the harvest glut or participate in urban warehouse receipt systems that tend not to help the smallholder market. Investing in on-farm storage is not an option, because when insecurity (erratic politics, diverse culture or climate change) shifts smallholders, stationary storage becomes distant.

Now, designed with integral wheels, storage bins are adapting with smallholders. Inside mobile storage, harvest is off the ground, under a roof and protected from insects and mold. Now small holders can store volume and quality, waiting tactically for better prices because PHL has been replaced with marketing. Investing in mobile storage is strategic marketing and smallholder security.--WTLanier (talk) 02:35, 10 February 2014 (PST)

Would adapting storage for security give smallholders Harvest tenure and deliver staples, for better prices, at ready markets - more effectively than Agricultural AID?

--WTLanier (talk) 02:35, 10 February 2014 (PST)

More in-depth discussion with references:
Would Harvest Tenure confront distant and naive reasons for Agricultural AID? --WTLanier (talk) 00:56, 10 February 2014 (PST)
Introduction
For discussion, let's agree staple grain production benefits from mobile inputs like labor, seed, fertility, pest management and assets like tractors, trucks, wagons, storage (bins, silos, warehouses) and dams. And also agree that lacking Land tenure, mobile inputs and assets are more meaningful.
Good storage is very meaningful to growers, because without it Postharvest loss wastes production – and the related inputs, especially labor used to produce those wasted crops.
However, warehouses or silos are stationary and for disadvantaged growers, Land tenure is a challenge.
Now there is storage that protects and adapts so Postharvest loss is replaced with meaningful production.

Back ground
It is easy to search the web and read at the "ADM Institute for the Prevention of Postharvest Loss" how African staple grain value chains are weak from Postharvest loss (PHL). Even though "Tackling post-harvest loss in developing countries is not rocket science" (Cousin, E., Executive Director UN WFP 2013), growers suffer AID and political inputs that only increase gross production (AID Amnesia 2014). Poor Postharvest storage wastes production — and related inputs, especially disempowered labor (Feed the Future, 2013) that contributed to producing the wasted crop.

Anyone who owns good storage can capture meaningful production for marketing. But disadvantaged growers are challenged to own the real estate needed for silos and warehouses. When insecurity (erratic politics, diverse culture or climate change) shifts growers, mobile inputs and assets adapt easily, but storage designed to be stationary does not adapt. Moving warehouses or large metal silos is not cost effective and so 80% of Government stationary rural storage is distant and obsolete (Ghana Commercial Agriculture Project Appraisal, 2012). Stationary storage that does not adapt, becomes idle (Armah, 2006). Idle storage reduces the utility* of inputs like mechanization, seed, fertility, pest management and so for example, dis-empowered labor feeds PHL instead of Food security.

Like Kenyans "Poor storage puts a damper on maize farmers’ cash prospects" (Business Daily Africa, 2014), few Ghanaians are participating in naive marketing that is urban warehouse receipts systems (WRS) because WRS do not help the small holder (PHL: The Case of Missing Food in Sub-Saharan Africa, World Bank, 2013). Naive urban WRS force grower's net to suffer local harvest glut prices. 

NeverIdle Metal storage
Now, with integral wheels, storage assets move off the political grid, mesh with culture and are never idle. Inside NeverIdle storage**, harvest is off the ground, under a roof and protected from local pests, floods, wild fire, theft and stored tactically for better prices. Instead of warehouse middlemen or opportunistic traders, NeverIdle storage gives growers peace of mind to wait tactically for better prices or strategically locate storage assets (Growing Africa: Unlocking the Potential of Agribusiness, 2013) so inputs are meaningful. NeverIdle storage navigates challenge by scaling where storage replaces PHL with meaningful Harvest tenure.

Compare the utility of "idle - naive" with "neveridle - strategic". Then remove the cost of drudgery on culture and invest utility to improve food security, meaningfully.

Summary There is evidence that Harvest tenure could contribute meaningful utility by replacing Postharvest loss with tactical and strategic marketing, grower net and Food security.

Take home question Would Harvest tenure allow growers the peace of mind to: confront dis-empowerment, "idle - naive" reasons perpetuating PHL, staple grain and pulse imports, insecurity and ultimately AID?

• 

  Metal mobile storage bin

Notes and references

• utility is 1. useful, esp. through being able to perform several functions. "a utility truck" and 2. functional rather than attractive "utility clothing" or "utility knife".
  
  • African for Field bin and NeverIdle Farms and Consulting (Ghana) Ltd.
    

- ADM, 2013 ("ADM Institute for the Prevention of Postharvest Loss") [1]
- AID Amnesia, 2014 ("Even when agricultural yields did increase, villagers found themselves with a maize surplus for which they had neither a market nor storage capacity." W. Easterly January 23, 2014) [2]
- Business Daily Africa, 2014 "Poor storage puts a damper on maize farmers’ cash prospects", Business Daily - Corporate News, Africa) January 20, 2014. [3]
- Business Daily Africa, 2014 (Poor storage puts a damper on maize farmers’ cash prospects, Business Daily - Corporate News, Africa) January 20, 2014. [4]
- Cousin, E., Executive Director UN WFP, 2013 "Encouragingly, though, tackling post-harvest loss is not rocket science. It does not require technological breakthroughs or years of high level scientific research as do some of the other challenges we face." Ertharin Cousin executive director of the UN World Food Program in Rome. [5]
- GCAP, 2012. Ghana Commercial Agriculture Project Appraisal, 2012 (Page 56, starting #61 and Page 130 Bullet 6 and 12-C. #35) 2012. [6]
- Growing Africa: Unlocking the Potential of Agribusiness (Page 92 Innovative ways of providing collateral), World Bank, January 2013. [7]
- Feed the Future 2014. MEASURING PROGRESS TOWARD EMPOWERMENT "women are about three times as disempowered as men in Tajikistan and Ghana". Malapit, HJ., et al. "Measuring Progress toward Empowerment" <reliefweb.int/sites/reliefweb.int/files/resources/weaireport2013.pdf>
- Postharvest Loss: The Case of Missing Food in Sub-Saharan Africa, (Page 34, Text box 3.5) World Bank, 2013. [8]‎

Know also

NeverIdle storage comes in many sizes (15 - 50 tonnes):1. is sack (hermetic or sisal) friendly; 2. is designed for bulk handling dry and clean staple grains and animal feed etc; 3. works (lease or sell) for less than storage on trucks and wagons because they are too expensive to park; 4. moves (when empty) using integral wheels to where storage is needed, unlike warehouses and stationary silos that may be empty because of politics, diverse cultures or climate change; 5. reduces postharvest (and related input) loss so growers eat, process, sell more of what they grow, for better prices, at ready markets - more times.

Interwiki links

• Wikipedia:
• Post-harvest loss

External links

• ADM Institute for the Prevention of Postharvest loss[9]

• NeverIdle Farms and Consulting (Ghana) Ltd.[10]

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