Traders' cereal and legume grain storage practices and losses in Benin

Abstract

As countries urbanise and food systems lengthen, trade and traders' food storage practices become increasingly important. However, limited information on traders' practices exists. Using semi-structured interviews and loss measurement this study explored traders' postharvest practices and losses for maize, sorghum, cowpea and groundnut in Benin. During purchasing, traders use quality criteria such as: undamaged, clean, well-dried grains. They store the crops predominantly in sacks in rented warehouses or at their homesteads. Despite using grain protectants, they periodically unload, re-sun-dry, and re-sort their stocks to remove holed or mouldy grains. At storage termination grain weight loss due to insect damage and total weight loss due to all factors ranged from 0.25 to 8.17% across the