Adoption Of Post-harvest Technologies And Household Food Security

To achieve food security, it is not only imperative to increase farm production but also to adopt post-harvest management technologies in order to reduce food loss in terms of weight and edibility. This study sought to find out the factors that influence adoption of maize post-harvest technologies and the relationship of adoption with household food security in Kirehe District. It involved 385 maize farmers and revealed that majority of respondents (77.1%) are major adopters of cemented drying ground, (90.1%) mechanical shelling machines, (45%) mechanical winnowing machine and (96.8%) warehouses for storage. The study further revealed that personal factors like access to market information, farming experience, years of membership in a cooperative organization, perceived reason of joining a cooperative, are influential personal factors of adoption of maize post-harvest technologies. This adoption of post-harvest technologies was significantly associated with food security among maize smallholder farmers in kirehe District, Rwanda.