The pleasure of having a constant food supply had hit a large wall for Moses Atsiaya a farmer in Western Kenya after he witnessed his previous harvest get destroyed by weevils. Even though his six acres of maize field had previously yielded large harvests at the end of the season, which meant stable supply of food, the damages caused by these crop pests seemed unstoppable.

The farmer, who can be classified as a large scale farmer from Malava, vainly sought effective means of protecting his grains from pest attacks, bearing in mind that the traditional crop protection methods were proving futile and the damage caused to the harvests was already irreversible. Today, Atsiaya, a father of eight has discovered the secret behind proper post harvest storage, and comfortably observes his crops preserved.

Although Atsiaya bore the brunt of this harsh case, for most farmers in Western Kenya, post harvest storage is a major challenge that continues to cost them their cereals after every harvesting season, consequently threatening their food security. Most of them are engrossed in traditional methods, which might not be effective to the resistance habits of most crop pests and insects attacking cereals.

Atsiaya says that most rural farmers rely heavily on the use of materials such as ash for storing their harvests because it is believed to be abrasive to the cuticles of the crop insects, although some of them have begun to use modern agrochemicals believed to have stronger destruction effect on pests.

The use of such modern chemicals to promote the resistance of crops is a bit of complicated phenomenon among small- scale rural farmers that have chosen to stick to their traditional ways. The fact that their harvest is produced for domestic consumption makes most of them underestimate the necessity of using stronger herbicides and pesticides that have long lasting protective potential.

“Most small-scale farmers do not see the benefit of purchasing chemicals to use on their crops because they are certain that the produce will be over in three months,” says Atsiaya.

Quite clearly, it is noted that African rural farmers have varied ways of keeping their harvest safe. While a few of them opt for modern techniques of crop storage, the rest, perhaps as a result of poor regard to their harvests and limited education fail to adopt proper ways that enhance the safety of harvested crops. The process of preservation should see the cleaning of all cereals, and then have them treated effectively before they are put into the granary. This will contribute to control of most traditional storage insects and pests, argue crop protection pundits.

They further say that the control of insects on crops should start before the harvest and not only when the insects have been detected in the crops during storage. Unfortunately, most farmers not only give little concern to their harvested crops but also do not frequently apply chemicals to their harvests, leading to increased opportunities of crop damage.

Christopher Ambani, another farmer from Lugari, says that farmers use various methods of preservation depending on their performance. Even though a great number of them use ash, others use repulsive local herbs such as neem which is believed to be harmful to insects. Some farmers ignore the essential concept of preserving their storage altogether because they have used hybrid seeds during planting. Although many modern cereal varieties and hybrids possess improved agronomy performance and tolerance to living and non living stresses, traits that contribute to improved grain storage have been largely ignored, cautions Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO).

“Many farmers who use hybrid seeds know that they have been treated and therefore do not need any other treatment,” he says.

But the fact that quite a large number of farmers use traditional practices to conserve their harvests does not mean that agrochemicals are heavily discarded among these rural farmers. In fact, most of them have embraced the technique and continue to witness their grains withstand pest attacks.

James Musembi, a farmer from Machakos in Eastern Kenya says that many farmers have begun resorting to modern chemicals because they have realized that their crops are not being spared from pest destruction in spite of applying such preservation chemicals as ash, pepper and soil. This, he says, has made them understand that these methods are not effective means of saving their grains if they hope to preserve them for food in future.

He adds that today farmers mostly use agrochemicals like the Actelic Super, which he says has a great capacity to combat crop pests that threaten the mainstay of harvested grains.
 
“After harvesting we know that there are many pests and insects that tend to attack our crops, and if we use these traditional methods, the crops will keep on being destroyed,” he says, and adds that for farmers that produce large harvests it is important to observe consistent ways of storing crop yields.