Can Storage replace Agricultural AID? --WTLanier (talk) 17:11, 3 February 2014 (PST)
Summary:
It is easy to read how African staple grain 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 erratic politics, tenure insecurity or climate change shift smallholders, stationary storage, for example becomes distant.

Now, designed with integral wheels, storage bins are shifting (when empty) with smallholders. Inside mobile storage, harvest is off the ground, under a roof and hard for insects and mold to damage. 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 profitable because smallholders can market from strategic locations.--WTLanier (talk) 02:35, 10 February 2014 (PST)

Equipped with storage and marketing would smallholders have Harvest tenure and deliver food security, for better prices, at ready markets - more effectively than Agricultural AID?

Would growers with Harvest tenure confront the obsolete and naive reasons perpetuating staple grain imports and agriculture 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 mobile assets like tractors, trucks, wagons and stationary assets like fences, silos, warehouses and dams.
And also agree that without land tenure, mobile inputs and assets adapt with growers in a meaningful way.
Good storage is very meaningful to growers, because without it Postharvest loss wastes production – and the inputs, especially disadvantaged labor used to produce those wasted crops. But warehouse and silo storage is stationary, it does not adapt.

Now there is storage that protects, adapts to change 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" (E. Cousin 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 grower drudgery that contributed to producing the wasted crop.

Anyone who owns good storage can capture meaningful production. But the disadvantaged grower cannot own the space needed for stationary silos and warehouses. When erratic politics 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).
Storage that does not adapt, becomes idle. Idle storage stops the utility* of political and AID inputs like tractors, seeds, fertilizers and pesticides from reaching growers, causing food insecurity.

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 (Postharvest Loss: The Case of Missing Food in Sub-Saharan Africa, World Bank, 2013).
Naive urban WRS force grower's net income to suffer local harvest glut prices.

NeverIdle Metal storage
Now, designed with integral wheels, storage assets are NeverIdle. Like silos, NeverIdle storage** saves PHL, but this storage only needs parking space. Inside NeverIdle storage, production is protected from PHL caused by local rats, floods, birds, rain, insects, mold, wild fire and theft. Now, instead of naive WRS, growers can store volume and quality locally, waiting tactically for better prices. Soon, investing strategically in NeverIdle storage assets (Growing Africa: Unlocking the Potential of Agribusiness, 2013) is profitable because production improves grower net income.

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

Consider how coffee is to cup, networks are to phones and how growers need tenure for what they harvest. Buying coffee in a "travel" cup or a "mobile" phone has very high utility, the mobile coffee or network storage adapts to provide tenure to the owner. Even though NeverIdle storage only moves when empty… it has cup or mobile phone like - high utility when it is full.

Is it fair to say... as travel cup is to coffee, mobile is to network - NeverIdle storage is to Harvest tenure?

Is it fair to ask... If Harvest tenure would let growers confront disadvantage, "idle - naive" reasons perpetuating staple grain imports and agriculture AID?


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]
- E. Cousin 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. [4]
- Ghana Commercial Agriculture Project Appraisal, 2012 (Page 56, starting #61 and Page 130 Bullet 6 and 12-C. #35) 2012. [5]
- Growing Africa: Unlocking the Potential of Agribusiness (Page 92 Innovative ways of providing collateral), World Bank, January 2013. [6]
- Postharvest Loss: The Case of Missing Food in Sub-Saharan Africa, (Page 34, Text box 3.5) World Bank, 2013. [7]

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

External links

  • ADM Institute for the Prevention of Postharvest loss[8]
  • NeverIdle Farms and Consulting (Ghana) Ltd.[9]

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