Post Harvest Storage as a Rural Household Food Security Strategy in Tanzania

The main cause of food insecurity resulting into low income and poverty experienced by smallholder farmers is low crop and animal productivity. However, in rural developing countries some of the factors of food insecurity include post harvest losses. Based on this premise a study was conducted in 2005 to assess the effectiveness of post harvest storage facilities, with emphasis on rural household grain storage structures as part of a larger study to address the issue of food security at household level. Using sample survey to complement PRA methods in selected regions of Morogoro, Dodoma and Rukwa, causes of the limited success enjoyed by certain innovations was explored as well as the insufficient consideration of the needs of the actors involved in the development of the post-harvest systems in particular grain storage structures. Account was taken of the socio-economic aspects and requirements in the post harvest system in order to better understand and anticipate future technological changes. It was established that the ability of smallholder farmers, individually or in groups to effectively and efficiently store a significant part of their harvest at farm level, is a major contributing factor for attaining food sufficiency and eliminate wide spread hunger in the region. This was in particularly true in Kongwa District (in Dodoma Region) semi-arid area/climate where grain pests are prevalent in causing high losses. 1