Grain Hermetic Storage Adoption in Northern Uganda: Awareness, Use, and the Constraints to Technology Adoption

Post-harvest storage losses (PHLs) remain significant in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) due to several factors mainly insect pests and molds. Hermetic storage technologies (HSTs) are being promoted to address these storage losses. In Uganda, HSTs were first introduced in 2012. However, its use among farming households remains low today. Data were collected from 306 smallholder farmers from four districts of Northern Uganda using a pre-tested semi-structured questionnaire to understand their knowledge, use, and constraints to the adoption of hermetic storage. A multivariate Logit regression model was used to find the significance of the factors affecting adoption. Results showed low awareness and use of hermetic storage among smallholder farmers. Only 53.3% of the interviewed farmers were aware of the use of hermetic storage for grain storage. The SuperGrain bag was the most known form of hermetic storage (35.3%), followed by the Purdue Improved Crop Storage (PICS) bag (34.9%), metallic silo (15.5%), and plastic silo (14.4%). Hermetic storage use was even lower as only 17.6% storage in Northern Uganda. The logit regression models showed that only training in hermetic storage significantly (p = 0.002) affected farmers’ decision to adopt hermetic storage. Understanding the factors that constrain the adoption of HSTs could provide policymakers with important information to initiate and design policies and programs aimed at reducing crop storage losses.


Introduction
The goal of feeding the global population by 2050 has drawn the interest of world leaders, philanthropists, and development partners alike. According to projections, global food output will need to increase by up to 70% from current levels by 2050 to guarantee future food demands [1] [2] [3]. This projection is a concern because 957 million people currently do not have enough food to eat, with 239 million out of these requiring life-saving humanitarian assistance [4]. While the population of developed countries will remain stable or even decline, developing countries will have a high population growth rate causing a substantial increase in food demand [2] [5] [6]. This predicament is exacerbated by the fact that previous international agricultural development efforts tended to concentrate on addressing concerns related to boosting crop production and productivity [7], with issues to do with post-harvest management receiving little to no attention [5]. Crop post-harvest management only started gaining attention recently due to the high magnitude of reported PHLs and the realization of its immense contributions to food security, health, and farming household incomes.
Grain PHLs in SSA are mainly caused by insect pests and mycotoxin contamination [8] [9] [10]. These pose a substantial food security threat as they cause significant quantitative and qualitative losses of otherwise edible grains [11] [12] [13]. Globally, approximately one-third of the food produced for human consumption is lost or wasted annually post-harvest [14]. This quantity of food loss equates to the annual worth of cereal imports to SSA and exceeds the value of food aid supplied to SSA in a decade [15] [16]. Food that is lost or squandered on its way to consumption signifies a waste of resources in terms of land, labor, water, and other resources used to produce the food in vain [17] [18]. Because of the criticality of post-harvest food loss reduction, the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) emphasize raising global awareness of the issue. Target 12.3 of the SDGs calls for halving the global per capita food waste by 2030 and reducing food losses in the production and supply chains [19].
Grain PHLs during storage are estimated to be high, with dry weight losses reaching up to 30% [20] [21], but can be higher when considered together with  [23]. Insects, rodents, and molds are the leading causes of grain storage losses [23] [24]. One of the factors contributing to high grain storage losses is the vulnerability of existing traditional storage methods. High costs, lack of information and knowledge on use, and limited access to credit hinder smallholder farmers' access to effective storage technologies [25] [26].
Many smallholder farmers often opt to sell their produce to grain traders shortly after harvest due to a lack of confidence in the ability of their storage technologies to protect their stored grains [12] [22]. Regrettably, this is the time when grain prices are at their lowest. This is made worse by the fact that farmers have to buy grains from the traders during lean seasons at often relatively higher  [30]. Besides, the protective action of synthetic pesticides is known to wear over time, allowing pest re-infestation to occur [31]. Due to these, alternative safe, cost-effective, and sustainable grain storage systems are required.
In Uganda, grain storage contributes significantly to smallholder farmers' food security and household income as farming is the main economic activity yet the gap between one harvest and another can extend for longer than six to nine months. The woven polypropylene (PP) bag is the most common form of grain storage in Uganda used by more than 73% of farming households [22], yet it is ineffective in protecting grains from storage losses. Farmers need storage technologies that are sustainable, cost-effective, and easy to use to be successful [32]. In the quest for better grain storage, HSTs have proven effective in match-

Study Area and Timing
This study was conducted in Northern Uganda in the districts of Adjumani, Amuru, Apac, and Dokolo during October and November 2020 ( Figure 1).

Econometric Analysis
The use of probability models to identify the key factors affecting the decision to adopt a new technology is commonly used [26].
are the independent variables whose effects on the adoption of hermetic storage were investigated; and i e is the model error term.

Demographic, Socioeconomic, and Farming Characteristics of the Farmers
Northern Uganda is a kind of shrubby Grassland Savannah vegetation that receives a bimodal rainfall pattern from March to May and August to November annually. Rainfall patterns have, however, been unpredictable in the past few decades. The demographic and socioeconomic characteristics of the respondents are shown in Table 2. Among the respondents, 55.9% were male while 81.0% were married. Forty-nine percent of the respondents were aged 18 -35 years, and 59.5% had only completed primary school education. A large number of the respondents (41.8%) were smallholder farmers who owned 3 -6 acres of land.
Seventy percent of the respondents had more than 50% of total cultivated land under grain production. About 32% of the respondents earned between UGX 500,000 -1,000,000 (USD 136 -272) as their annual household income. About 37.6% of respondents cultivate family-owned land while 29.4% use both family land and rented land ( Table 2).
At least 12-grain crops are cultivated by smallholder farmers in the survey area (Data not shown). These crops include legumes (common beans, pigeon peas, mung beans, groundnuts, and cowpeas), cereals (maize, finger millet, rice, and sorghum), and oil crops (soybean, sesame, and sunflower). Maize, common

Quantity of Grains Harvested, Stored, and Quantity Remaining after Three Months
Maize was the commodity harvested in the largest quantity while green gram was the least harvested among the traditional grain crops in the study area ( Figure 3). The most stored commodities following harvest were pigeon pea   after three months. Sunflower remaining after three months was less than 1% of the initial harvest.

Farmers' Knowledge/Awareness, Use, and Handling of HSTs in Northern Uganda
Awareness of new agricultural technology is a key to promoting farmer acceptance and adoption. Fifty-three percent of the respondents were aware of some    lack of availability (50.2%), high cost (37.8%), and lack of knowledge on how to use (6.9%) among others (Table 4). About 55.6% of HST users had received their HSTs for free while the rest acquired them through purchasing. Among the HST users, 51.9% of the respondents said they would like to reuse their HSTs for at least three seasons. About 44.4% of the respondents opened their hermetic storage containers every month while 25.9% opened after every three months ( Table 4). Most of the respondents (64.8%) gave the reason for HSTs opening as to obtain grains for sale and consumption. To improve HSTs availability and use, most farmers think the use of farmer-based organizations (41.4%) and retail shops in their villages (34.0%) would be the most suitable approaches.

Contributions of Hermetic Storage to Food Security and Household Income
When asked about the benefits of using HSTs, the respondents described several benefits that originate from the adoption of improved grain storage technologies. Among the HST users in our study, the benefits of using hermetic storage over conventional storage technologies included improved food availability in the farming households, household income, improved grain quality, and nutrition reported by 98.1%, 90.7%, 100%, and 90.7% of the respondents respectively (Data not shown).

Econometric Analysis Results
The binary logit regression analysis was used to identify the important factors affecting the decision to adopt the use of hermetic storage in Northern Uganda. The determinants of adoption of HSTs are shown in the Logit model estimation results shown in

Demographic and Socioeconomic Characteristics of the Farmers
In Uganda, agriculture is the mainstay of the population upon which people directly or indirectly derive their livelihoods. Subsistence agriculture in the country contributes significantly to the food and income requirements of about 85% -90% of households in Uganda [40]. In our study, young people between 18 -35 years made up nearly half (48.7%) of the surveyed population. The population of Uganda is one of the youngest in the world [41]. Young farmers are considered more energetic and productive in agricultural work as most fieldwork activities in smallholder farmer settings of SSA require physical effort characteristic of young people. Besides, young people are more likely to adopt new agricultural technologies faster than their aged counterparts [42]. The majority of Ugandan farmers are smallholder farmers who produce food chiefly to meet their food and income requirements. At least 76% of the surveyed population owned between 1 -6 acres of agricultural land, with grain production accounting for much of the total land under cultivation. Grain production is a key social and economic activity in Uganda, contributing to food security and smallholder farmers' household income requirements [43] [44]. This indicates that priority is given to grain crops when it comes to land allocation compared to traditional

Quantity of Grains Harvested, Stored, and Quantity Remaining at Farming Households after Three Months
Northern Uganda receives two rainy seasons from March to May and August to November each year, and there are at least six to eight months of grain storage before the next harvest season. This duration of food storage may affect the food security and household income of smallholder farmers especially if they lack better storage technologies. While food production is a seasonal activity, food consumption is an ongoing activity that must be met regularly and adequately [45]. Farmers should thus be able to store enough food to meet their household food and income needs during the lean periods. From our study, most smallholder farmers remained with only a limited quantity of grains in their food stores just three months following harvest. This indicates the vulnerability of many smallholder farmers during the lean periods and the struggle they go through to meet their household food needs between one harvest season and the other. In a study carried out in Tanzania, crop stocks were less by 63% -94% of the harvest amount after just one month of storage [8].
Shortly after harvest, many smallholder farmers opt to sell most of their crops for several reasons. These include raising money for school fees, household requirements, and the perception of grain surplus above storability [8]. Besides, the onset of the crop harvest season coincides with financial pressures that farming households have been subject to during the lean periods, with the immediate option being the sale of some or all of the crop harvests. Other farmers also sell their surplus crop harvests for fear of losing them to the agents of deterioration during storage [22] [46]. When sold immediately after harvest, households will be forced, in a few months, to buy grains at relatively higher prices than sold to meet their food needs [12] [47] [48]. Among other factors, this has kept many smallholder farmers of SSA in perpetual poverty.
For all the grain commodities produced by farmers, prices during the lean seasons were significantly higher than during the harvest seasons, amounting to gains of US $322, 302, 271, and 262 per metric ton of pigeon pea, common beans, sesame, and green gram sold in the lean periods. This benefit of fetching higher prices when grains are sold during the lean periods is an opportunity for smallholder farmers to invest in and use effective and sustainable storage solutions such as hermetic storage that retain higher crop quality for longer in storage. The ability to be able to store crops from harvest time until when local market prices are favorable could improve smallholder farmers' incomes that would eventually break the perpetual cycle of poverty resulting from farmers' poor grain storage habits [8]. Besides fetching higher market prices, storing

Provision of Agricultural Extension Services, Information, and Training on Hermetic Storage Technologies
Agricultural extension services are important to enhance farmer knowledge and awareness of the availability of new and improved farming technologies [49].

Awareness, Use, and Constraints to the Adoption of Hermetic Storage
Our study indicated that awareness and use of HSTs in Northern Uganda are low among the surveyed farmers, and the same could be true for the whole country. Despite the promotion and dissemination of HSTs in Uganda by de- in some commodities [52]. By using HSTs, insect pests cannot thrive due to the creation of interstitial modified atmospheres of low oxygen and high carbon dioxide [48] [53] [54]. Due to inadequate oxygen supply, cessation of insect feeding, growth, development, reproduction, and eventual death occurs for insect pest species and their life stages [55]. Besides, the lack of oxygen blocks the supply of vital metabolic water leading to the desiccation of insect pests and their life stages [55].
The main constraints to hermetic storage technology adoption in Northern Uganda were lack of availability and high cost compared to conventional grain storage methods. In West and Central Africa, lack of availability of HSTs and lack of information were noted as the top most important constraints hindering farmers from using hermetic grain storage [26]. In a related adoption study in West Africa, lack of availability and high price were the top reasons for the low adoption of PICS bags for grain storage [26]. The users of hermetic storage have to strike a balance between technology cost, availability, and durability [32]. The initial acquisition cost of HSTs is a major constraint to smallholder farmers in Uganda. Metallic silos cost about USD 35 for a 100 kg silo and USD 2 -4 for a 100 kg hermetic bag compared to the popularly used woven PP bag which cost at most USD 0.4 for a 100 kg bag. From this, it is clear that the cost of HSTs is highly substantial for smallholder farmers given the limited financial capacity of smallholder farmers of SSA [12].
Among the HST users, most farmers received them for free or paid a small fraction of the total costs as promotion incentives offered by the promoters of the technology. To ensure rapid awareness and adoption of HSTs, development partners and other promoters of new storage technologies initially offer them to participating households at a small fraction of the total technology fee or completely free [22]. This is usually done so that the beneficiary farmers and other farmers would learn about the benefits of the technology and later take personal interest to buy them for improved food security and incomes in their households. Most of the surveyed farmers opened their HSTs periodically after sealing to obtain grains either to be used as food or to sell for income to meet their household needs. While the opening of hermetic storage interrupts the herme- cantly impact grain quality [56]. The logit regression model results showed that training on HSTs was the main predictor of the adoption of storage technology in Northern Uganda. While other factors such as age, education, gender, and marital status among others are known to affect the adoption of storage technology [26] [39] [57], these were not the main factors in our study. It has been demonstrated that awareness-building exercises increase the adoption and use of new improved storage technologies [58]. Training and dissemination of knowledge and information about new technologies thus play a key role in raising awareness and subsequent diffusion of technologies among targeted users. Unlike in other hermetic storage adoption studies, education, membership in a farmer association, household headship, access to radio, and access to extension services did not significantly affect the adoption of hermetic storage in our study [26] [39]. This could be explained by the fact that the factors that affect hermetic storage adoption are area-specific and could have been different for Northern Uganda where our study was conducted.

Conclusions and Recommendations
The users of hermetic storage rely on this improved storage technology to control insect infestations without the need to use chemical insecticides. Despite the known effectiveness and superiority over conventional storage technologies, our study has shown that awareness and use of hermetic storage in Northern Uganda are low compared to other regions of SSA. Although numerous efforts have been put in by development partners, the awareness and use of hermetic storage remain low in Uganda. The most important constraints to the adoption of HSTs in Uganda are lack of availability and high costs as indicated by 50.2% and 37.8% respectively of the respondents in the study area. If the adoption and use of hermetic storage technology are to improve, these constraints should be addressed by all interested stakeholders. Innovative awareness creation activities such as public demonstrations and radio programs among others could be useful to improve farmers' knowledge and adoption of the technology.