3.1. Training of Postharvest Trainers
One of the major objectives of the Hort CRSP–funded project was to educate 30 trainers as postharvest specialists and provide them with the knowledge, tools, and motivation to train 5000 local clientele in their own home locations by the end of the project. The project outcomes exceeded these targets, as 36 young horticultural professionals from seven countries in SSA were provided with 18 months of e-learning–based training during 2011–2012. All 36 completed the postharvest e-learning program and were given certificates as postharvest specialists. Topics included postharvest loss assessment, commodity systems assessment, technical information on small-scale practices, designing postharvest demonstrations (on harvesting, handling, sorting/grading, improved packages, cooling practices, storage, food processing methods, and more), planning extension programs, and designing their own PTSCs for their home countries.
From October 2012 through October 2013, without any project-provided funding but with access to mentoring and technical support, these 36 trainers planned and implemented postharvest horticultural training programs for more than 13,000 local farmers, extension workers, food processors, and marketers in their home countries. The TOPS evaluation reached 33 of these trainers, and their reports revealed that from November 2013 to November 2014, an additional 9300 people were trained by 28 of the trainers. The five persons who did not report providing any postharvest training for local populations were either actively pursuing graduate studies (in Germany, South Africa, and the USA) or had taken new jobs outside the agricultural sector (in Ghana and in Tanzania).
When asked about adoption of postharvest practices by their local trainees, 79% of the respondents reported on examples of trainees who are now using improved postharvest practices. Among those practices were improved harvesting, packing practices, and postharvest handling practices, Zero Energy Cool Chamber (ZECC) storage, solar drying, use of a cool room (via second-hand reefer container), postharvest loss assessment, and use of a postharvest tool kit and materials. However, solar drying and improved packaging practices were the most commonly used practices. Some farmers and traders of fresh horticultural crops started to dry and package their surplus produce or products which are not sold at the daily market with improved (vented) plastic bags, in order to avoid postharvest losses. These simple practices provide value in addition to the commodity and allow trainees to increase their incomes.
3.2. Postharvest Training and Demonstrations for Local Farmers in Tanzania
During 2012–2013, 14 instructors provided more than 30 postharvest training programs in Tanzania for local farmers, food processors, and marketers. Nine of the 14 postharvest instructors were women (from the USA, Lebanon, New Zealand, and Tanzania), and five were men (from Uganda, the USA, Zimbabwe, and Tanzania). Most of the instructors were independent consultants working with local organizations in Tanzania. Four of the instructors (two men and two women) were recent graduate “Postharvest Specialists” of the Hort CRSP ToT program. All 14 instructors were evaluated during the TOPS project. They were each contacted via email by one of WFLO’s local consultants, and she then followed up via phone calls to probe for details and any missing information and to ensure that each written survey was fully completed.
A few of the training programs were open to the public (“open house days” where local people were welcome to attend), but most were designed for a specific audience, based on requests or locally assessed training needs. Most of the training programs were offered over a period of several days, and all of the programs covered three or more postharvest topics. The sites for training included the PTSC at AVRDC, the Ministry of Agriculture, Food Security and Cooperatives (MAFC) Njiro training venue, and the OIKOS Mkuru Training Camp. Individuals or groups were invited by telephone or a group would make inquiries at AVRDC or the Selian Agricultural Research Institute (SARI) in Arusha about having a postharvest training program developed for them. According to these 14 instructors, the topics that women asked about most often were the use of shade, gentle handling, home storage, food processing, and marketing. The topics asked about most often by men were cooling, cold storage, transport, Good Agricultural Practices (GAPs), food safety, food processing, and marketing.
Two WFLO consultants, based locally in Arusha, conducted face-to-face interviews with 50 participants from the training programs. This sample was comprised of five persons who had been randomly selected from 10 randomly selected participant groups via cluster sampling. The survey results included responses from 42 women and eight men who had participated in PTSC training programs, with an average age of 46 years. The topics of the training programs were improved postharvest handling of fresh produce, ZECC storage, food processing methods (jam making, solar drying), cooling/cold storage, or marketing of horticultural crops. Most of the respondents identified themselves as farmers or food processors, and many were also marketers of their own fresh produce or processed products. Two of the respondents were also working as extension workers.
A wide range of demonstrations were mounted during the Hort CRSP project and have continued since the project ended. Specifications for demonstrations were based on published research and review articles [
11,
13,
14,
15].
These include:
Use of shade
Hand-washing/hygiene practices
Improved containers (plastic crates, half-size wooden crates)
Zero energy cool chamber (for storage of fresh fruits and vegetables)
Solar drying
Cold room equipped with CoolBot
Several new demonstrations have been added during 2014–2015 by the postharvest staff at AVRDC. These include:
A simple hydro-cooler with recirculation system
Improved wooden crates (smaller, smooth on the inside)
Liners for use in traditional containers
Wakati (a high relative humidity % storage container; under study with Arne Pauwels of Belgium)
Because the trainings took place at the PTSC sites where these demonstrations have been established, the 50 respondents reported having seen many of the following demonstrations (see
Table 2 for a count of the number indicating they had seen each of the demonstrations). In addition, when they were asked to rate the usefulness (as most or least useful), most of the respondents did not select one demonstration as was anticipated, but each rated many of the demonstrations they had seen as “most useful”.
Only three of the 50 respondents reported that they had not used one or more of the practices that they had first seen in a postharvest demonstration. Many reported using maturity indices (25), shade (27), sorting/grading (40), and/or improved containers (34) to help reduce fresh produce wastage.
The demonstrations designated as “least useful” were those with a high perceived cost (a cold room equipped with the CoolBot™, at a cost of approximately $2000 for specialized equipment and materials for self-construction, had not been adopted by any of the respondents, and the equipment required for jam-making was deemed too expensive by one respondent). Of the practices rated as “most useful”, the least-cited was hand-washing and hygiene, which is already being practiced by those doing food processing.
All of the 50 persons interviewed for the evaluation indicated that they had adopted new postharvest handling practices or technologies for reducing losses and increasing the value of their crops after receiving training via the PTSC, and 42 people were able to provide details on local costs and benefits.
Table 2.
Training participant ratings of postharvest demonstrations.
Table 2.
Training participant ratings of postharvest demonstrations.
Demonstrations | No. that have seen it | Rated the demo as most useful | Rated the demo as least useful | No. that have been using the new or improved practice |
---|
Shade | 44 | 31 | | 27 |
Gentle handling | 33 | 24 | | 17 |
Maturity indices | 33 | 24 | | 25 |
Improved containers | 45 | 32 | | 34 |
Sorting/grading | 47 | 36 | | 40 |
Hand-washing/hygiene | 45 | 10 | | 35 |
ZECC | 45 | 33 | | 20 |
CoolBot™ | 37 | 3 | 24 | 0 |
Solar drying | 44 | 34 | | 29 |
Jam making | 43 | 32 | 1 | 17 |
3.3. Adaptive Research
Adaptive research was planned on pest control, low-cost cool chambers, improved solar dryers, cool transport in insulated containers, food safety and/or other topics, but the research studies were not successfully carried out by AVRDC. Several meetings were held on the planning process during 2012 and 2013, and visits were made to Africa by the Principal Investigators and the Hort Innovation Lab management entity team in order to kick-start the process. In June 2013, a no-cost extension was granted to AVRDC in order to allow them more time to carry out some of these research studies.
In February 2014, AVRDC hired independent consultants to complete as much of the work as possible. Research studies were conducted on improved traditional containers (liners in wooden crates, use of plastic crates), consumer packages (recyclable clamshells and very thin plastic produce bags), insulated pallet covers for use during shipping (in order to measure effects on temperature change), and solar dryer modifications for enhancing drying during overcast weather (adding a black plastic wrap around the legs at the bottom of the dryer). AVRDC managed the work and provided the needed funds. A few of the studies have since been completed, and the results of a study on the use of low-cost insulated pallet covers and consumer packages for reducing losses of amaranth has been submitted to a major journal.
3.4. Postharvest Services at the PTSC in Arusha
Advisory services for those who are interested in adopting new practices and technologies were one of the only services being provided by the PTSC since the close of the project in 2014. The TOPS evaluation project revealed that since the end of the Hort CRSP pilot project, several local communities and training groups near Arusha have been receiving advice on constructing ZECCs for storing fresh foods on their farms or for food service. The ToT participants and AVRDC postharvest staff in Tanzania are actively making advisory field visits, meeting interested groups, and providing consulting for local clientele. Several local non-governmental organizations (NGOs) (Istituto OIKOS, The Mesula Project, ECHO-Impact Center, Arusha, Tanzania) have requested assistance and received postharvest training and advice on setting up their own demonstrations and training programs. None of the other planned “fee for services” activities (sorting/grading, packing, pre-cooling, cold storage, etc.) were being provided by the PTSC for local clientele.
The model included a variety of these postharvest services which were intended to serve as a ready source of income, generating funds to pay for utilities, management, and maintenance staff for the facilities. Without these sources of revenue, the PTSC will remain dependent upon the host organization for funding its management and training programs.
3.5. Retail Sales of Tools, Packages, and Postharvest Supplies
The evaluation revealed that the retail shop for the PTSC was never fully implemented, and much of the original inventory of tools and supplies provided by the Hort CRSP project is still on the shelves. The PTSC shop mainly functions for one week per year during the August “Nane-Nane” agricultural show at Njiro, Tanzania, when the shop is restocked with the most desired products and opened for business during a period of eight days so people can visit to make their purchases.
Both customers and the administrators of the PTSC project considered the retail shop to be one of the services provided for the local population, and expected the prices of goods and supplies to be kept lower than those at any competing vendor. The PTSC shop managers, on the other hand, did not have any wholesale buying expertise, and did not have the budget to be able to buy items in large enough quantities to make bulk purchases for the shop at lower wholesale prices.
When the 50 training program participants were queried regarding where they would obtain tools, supplies, and training if the PTSC did not exist, more than 50% said “nowhere” or said they “didn’t know” or “were not sure” (
Table 3).
Table 3.
Respondent (n = 50) answers to queries on where to obtain postharvest tools, supplies, and training.
Table 3.
Respondent (n = 50) answers to queries on where to obtain postharvest tools, supplies, and training.
If the PTSC did not exist: | Where would you go for postharvest training? | Where would you go for postharvest demos/advice? | Where would you buy postharvest goods and services? |
---|
Nowhere | 20 | 8 | 0 |
I don’t know | 7 | 15 | 3 |
Not sure | 0 | 8 | 2 |
Other sources/charity organizations | 21 | 16 | 16 |
The other sources listed by respondents included several local NGOs, churches, and international charities, but these sources were thought to be unreliable since they seldom offered training and did not always have the needed supplies. For example, OIKOS was included as a possible source for glass jars, but the evaluators learned that OIKOS buys its jars from the PTSC. The evaluation results make it clear that the PTSC shop has an important role to play in local postharvest loss reduction and small business development in Northern Tanzania, if it could be set up, stocked, operated, and marketed with a more business-like approach.