Determinants of postharvest loss in maize – a case study of Ejura – Sekyedumasi Municipality of Ashanti Region of Ghana

Maize is known to be domesticated first in Mesomaria with its botanical name as Zea mays L. The versatility in its usefulness makes it one of the very important grains in the world as it can be used as food for both human and animals, the generation of energy (bio fuels), medicine, for brewing beer and even whisky, starch production, chemicals and many other purposes. This study was therefore aimed at determining the factors that influence postharvest loss in maize with Ejura-Sekyedumase Municipality as the study area. The study was conducted in two folds. Field survey and field experiment. Purposive sampling technique was used to select ten maize communities in the Ejura-Sekyedumase Municipality of Ashanti Region of Ghana, namely, Dromankuma, Kasei, Kyenkyenkura, Bemi, Sekyedumase, Drobon, Dejau, Teacherkrom, Ejura and Babaso. (120) respondents of farmers/producers and (50) marketers a total of (170) respondents in all were randomly selected for the field survey whilst field experiment was also done for the various stages of postharvest handling including harvesting, shelling/threshing/winnowing, drying, storage and transportation. The results indicated that the most dominant varieties of maize were Aburohoma and Obaatanpa which were widely cultivated because of their high yielding nature. The regression analysis indicated that, traditional storage and production length were significant at 1% whilst storage, household size and educational background were significant at 5%. The results further indicated that postharvest losses normally occur at every stage of postharvest handling with much losses occurring during the harvesting and storage stages 38% and 25% respectively of total postharvest loss. The field experiment also indicated that maize storage is still a major problem among maize farmers in the study area. In the field experiment, storage was the highest stage that postharvest occurred most (4.9%) followed by shelling, threshing, winnowing and harvesting (4.25% and 2.95% respectively). Drying and transportation were the least stages where losses occurred, 2.05% and 1.4% respectively. Majority of the farmers in the municipality depend on traditional storage (crib) systems because they cannot afford warehouses. The Kendall’s coefficient of concordance revealed that, lack of storage facility, non availability of shelling/threshing services and difficulty finding buyers were the three most important constraints faced by farmers in the study area with mean marks of 1.24, 1.36, 1.47 respectively whilst pilfering and pest infestation ranked least with a mean mark of 3.44 and 2.49 respectively. The highest stage where losses occurred most is the harvesting (38%) followed by storage stage of about 25% of total postharvest loss in the field survey results and the field experiment results also indicated that, storage stage is the highest stage where more losses occurred (4.9%) followed by shelling, threshing and winnowing stage of about 4.25%. In view of these findings these stages should be looked at critically since they affect postharvest loss positively in the study area.

Source: KNUST