Smallholder grain postharvest management in a variable climate: practices and perceptions of smallholder farmers and the
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Smallholder grain postharvest management in a variable climate: practices and perceptions of smallholder farmers and their service-providers in semi‑arid areas Tinashe Nyabako1 · Brighton M. Mvumi1 · Tanya Stathers2 · Honest Machekano3,4 Received: 1 September 2019 / Accepted: 28 September 2020 © Springer Nature B.V. 2020
Abstract Field data on current crop postharvest management practices and perceptions from smallholder farming communities in an increasingly variable climate are scarce. Our study used a multi-dimensional approach to explore the practices and perceptions of these communities and their service-providers regarding grain postharvest management in semi-arid Mbire and Hwedza districts in Zimbabwe. A total of 601 individual household interviews, six focus group discussions with women and men, and interviews with 40 district stakeholders and 53 community key informants were conducted. Farmers and service-providers explained how climate change was threatening food security; causing reduced and more variable maize and sorghum yields of below 0.5 t/ha, alongside higher grain storage insect pest pressure. Increased food insecurity and concerns regarding grain theft have driven a shift from bulk storage in traditional outdoor free-standing granaries to polypropylene bags stacked inside the living quarters. Poor and improper use of synthetic pesticides in these circumstances exacerbates the health-related risks. Agricultural extension officers were the most common source of agronomic and postharvest information followed by farmer-to-farmer information exchange. Targeted postharvest training; participatory field trials involving agricultural extension staff, farmers and other service-providers; and policy dialogue around grain postharvest management and food security are proposed to help in strengthening the capacity to reduce grain postharvest losses under increasingly unpredictable conditions. Keywords Storage pest management · Smallholder grain storage · Climate change impacts · Postharvest management policy dialogue
* Brighton M. Mvumi [email protected]; [email protected] Extended author information available on the last page of the article
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1 Introduction Southern Africa has been experiencing fluctuating annual rainfall patterns and increasing temperatures (Brown et al. 2012; IPCC 2014). There is a clear shift in the prevailing climate with an increased frequency of drought and occurrence of extreme weather events which pose a significant risk to the existing food, biological and livelihood systems (Thornton et al. 2014), associated national policies and human health (Mubaya et al. 2012). The changes in temperature and rainfall patterns in some sub-Saharan African (SSA) countries such as Zimbabwe suggest that a new classification of agro-ecological regions may be required to correspond to the current climatic patterns (Mugandani et al. 2012; Nyabako and Manzungu 2012). In Zimbabwe, agro-ecological regions I and II (see details in Mugandani et al. (
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