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Crop Protection
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Review
The metal silo: An effective grain storage technology for reducing post-harvest
insect and pathogen losses in maize while improving smallholder farmers food
security in developing countries
Tadele Tefera*, Fred Kanampiu, Hugo De Groote, Jon Hellin, Stephen Mugo, Simon Kimenju,
Yoseph Beyene, Prasanna M. Boddupalli, Bekele Shiferaw, Marianne Banziger
The International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), ICRAF House, UN Avenue, Gigiri, P.O. Box 1041, 00621 Village Market, Nairobi, Kenya
a r t i c l e i n f o
a b s t r a c t
Article history:
Received 26 May 2010
Received in revised form
12 November 2010
Accepted 20 November 2010
Traditional storage practices in developing countries cannot guarantee protection against major storage
pests of staple food crops like maize, leading to 20e30% grain losses, particularly due to post-harvest
insect pests and grain pathogens. As a result, smallholder farmers end up selling their grain soon after
harvest, only to buy it back at an expensive price just a few months after harvest, falling in a poverty trap.
The potential impact on poverty reduction and greater livelihood security will not be realized, however, if
farmers are unable to store grains and sell surplus production at attractive prices. Apart from causing
quantitative losses, pests in stored grain are also linked to aatoxin contamination and poisoning. To
address this problem, a metal silo was developed as a valid option and proven effective in protecting
stored grains from attack by storage insect pests. A metal silo is a cylindrical structure, constructed from
a galvanized iron sheet and hermetically sealed, killing any insect pests that may be present. The impact
of metal silo technology in Africa, Asia and Latin America includes, improving food security, empowering
smallholder farmers, enhancing income opportunities and job creation, and safeguarding the agroecosystems. The metal silo can be fabricated in different sizes, 100 kge3000 kg holding capacity by
trained local artisans, with the corresponding prices of $35 to $375. The use of metal silo, therefore,
should be encouraged in order to prevent storage losses and enhance food security in developing
countries.
2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Keywords:
Food security
Insect pests
Maize storage
Metal silo
Post-harvest losses
1. Introduction
Traditional storage practices in developing countries cannot
guarantee protection against major storage pests of staple food
crops like maize. The lack of suitable storage structures for grain
storage and absence of storage management technologies often
force the smallholders to sell their produce immediately after
harvest. Consequently, farmers receive low market prices for any
surplus grain they may produce (Kimenju et al., 2009). Safe storage
of maize at the farm-level is crucial, as it directly impacts on
poverty alleviation, food and income security and prosperity for the
smallholder farmers. Without appropriate grain storage technologies, farmers are forced to sell maize when prices are low to avoid
post-harvest losses from storage pests and pathogens, cannot use
their harvest as collateral to access credit, and ultimately their food
security is undermined (Semple et al., 1992). Therefore, food
* Corresponding author.
E-mail addresses: t.tefera@cgiar.org, tadeletefera@yahoo.com (T. Tefera).
0261-2194/$ e see front matter 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.cropro.2010.11.015
241
242
at the top of the grain; the loading in-let sealed with the lid tightened
with a rubber band, while the candle is burning. The condition of the
seal is inspected and replaced when needed or after the grains are
removed for consumption or sell. After the grains are placed inside
the metal silo, the last crucial step for the technology to work well is,
placing the container cover tightly onto the metal silos top and
sealing with a rubber tubing (SDC, 2008b). This ensures that the
metal silo will remain airtight for months or years to come and that
no pests/pathogens can get into the container.
2.4. Production cost of metal silo
The major production costs include metal sheet, labor and
transportation. Although costs vary according to the circumstances
in each country, the prices of metal silos are, in general, reasonable
and affordable (FAO, 2008; CIMMYT, 2009a,b). The projects
implemented by the three international organizations (SDC, FAO,
and CIMMYT), promote metal silo purchase through revolving
credit funds and payment in cash and grain, among other strategies.
The storage cost per kg of grain falls as metal silo capacity increases
(Tables 2, 3, and 4) (FAO, 2008; CIMMYT, 2009a,b). It is generally
recommended to store seeds for planting in small metal silo
(100e200 kg capacity) and grains for consumption in larger metal
silo (300e3000 kg capacity).
3. Strengths and potential impacts of the metal silo
technology
Table 1
Metal silo technology up-scaling and deployment in four countries of Central America by the SDC.
Year
1995
2001
2003
2007
a
b
Hon.a
Nica.
Guat.
El Sal.
Total
Silo
Tins.b
Silo
Tins.
Silo
Tins.
Silo
Tins.
Silo
Tins.
70,000
123,706
145,931
185,000
130
151
184
200
4470
33,176
53,007
80,796
92
175
132
175
5556
67,813
103,364
176,468
51
344
386
410
459
27,817
46,920
57,879
8
111
103
107
80,485
252,512
349,222
500,143
281
781
805
892
Afghanistan
Bolivia
Burkina Faso
Cambodia
Chad
Guinea
Madagascar
Malawi
Mozambique
Namibia
Senegal
a
b
c
250 kg
500 kg
900 kg
1800 kg
e
20
26
12
e
e
e
e
20
e
23
28
35
29
20
66
e
40
22
34
e
42
70
60
42
30
97
59
50
45b
54
22a
60
e
e
56
e
128
e
70
60c
75
e
76
92
e
70
50
187
70
100
e
e
e
100
Farmers
beneted
Unit Price
(Kenyan shillings)
90
270
450
540
720
1800
Total
1
19
4
4
10
67
105
3000.00
5500.00
6,8000
8600.00
9800.00
25,200.00
40
74
89
115
130
336
243
Table 4
Price of the metal silo in Malawi in 2010.
Metal silo
capacity (kg)
Unit Price
(Malawian Kwacha)
Unit Price
(US Dollar)
1000
1500
2000
3000
50,000
55,000
65,000
75,000
320
350
420
480
244
6. Conclusions
Minimizing post-harvest losses is a very effective way of
reducing the area needed for production and thereby increasing
food production efciency. By preventing post-harvest losses, the
household metal silo also becomes an important technology for
enhancing food security, particularly for small-scale farmers in the
developing countries. In most countries where the metal silo has
been introduced, the silo has created a positive impact among
stakeholders directly or indirectly associated with the grain
production and storage. Continued progress in solving post-harvest
storage problems via metal silo promotion will require cooperation
and effective communication among government organizations,
non-government organizations, manufacturers and farmers.
Acknowledgement
We acknowledge the nancial support received from the Swiss
Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) for implementing
the Effective Grains Storage Project in Africa. We would like to thank
the collaborators of this project, particularly World Vision International, Malawi, and the Catholic Dioceses of Embu and Homa Bay,
Kenya, for partnering with CIMMYT in dissemination of the metal silo
technology. The FAO and SDC are acknowledged for use of their data.
Andrew Chavangi is acknowledged for sketching the metal silo.
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