{"id":16361,"date":"2026-06-20T12:50:40","date_gmt":"2026-06-20T12:50:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dev.iita.org\/news-item\/enhancing-food-safety-by-adopting-postharvest-technologies-a-case-study-of-pics-bags-in-tanzania\/"},"modified":"2026-06-29T19:33:33","modified_gmt":"2026-06-29T19:33:33","slug":"enhancing-food-safety-by-adopting-postharvest-technologies-a-case-study-of-pics-bags-in-tanzania","status":"publish","type":"news-item","link":"https:\/\/iita.org\/fr\/news-item\/enhancing-food-safety-by-adopting-postharvest-technologies-a-case-study-of-pics-bags-in-tanzania\/","title":{"rendered":"Enhancing food safety by adopting postharvest technologies: A case study of PICS bags in Tanzania"},"content":{"rendered":"

Postharvest loss has been a significant threat to achieving food security and safety in most developing countries across sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) for many years.\n\n

\"A
A line-up of PICS bags.<\/figcaption><\/figure>Most cereals, pulses, and oilseeds are prone to infestation by larger grain borer (LGB), weevils, bruchids, and aflatoxin contamination after harvest. Concurrently, smallholder farmers often use ineffective traditional storage structures and grain protectants\u2014ash, soil, and plant oils as storage techniques. These factors, combined with environmental conditions and harmful chemicals such as pesticide residues, reduce food quality, making it unsafe for consumption.\n\nWhile improved technologies exist to reduce postharvest losses, the adoption rates remain low. One such technology is the Purdue Improved Crop Storage (PICS) bag. PICS bags prevent grain damage from insect infestation, reduce aflatoxin accumulation in stored grain, and avoid exposure to hazardous storage chemicals. However, knowledge of the information channels is needed to drive the widespread adoption of this technology.\n\nTo this end, IITA<\/a> Agricultural Economist Julius Manda collaborated with other researchers from IITA-CGIAR<\/a> and World Resources Institute (Kenya) to conduct a study titled “Assessing the speed of improved postharvest technology adoption in Tanzania: The role of social learning and agricultural extension services.”\n\n
\"Evidence
Evidence from farmers adopting the use of PICS bag. Cowpea Storage (PICS) bag for the period of six (6) months, free of pest infestation. Photo by Abdoulaye Tahirou\/IITA. (file name: 100_0481).<\/figcaption><\/figure>The findings revealed that learning from friends, relatives (social learning), and extension agents significantly decreases farmers’ adoption time of PICS bags. On average, social learning reduces the adoption time by 51%, while learning from extension agents reduces by 49%. In addition, the combined influence of these two learning channels leads to a faster adoption rate, highlighting their complementary properties.\n\nMoreover, the results reveal that the marginal impacts of social learning and learning from extension agents are higher for the households in the upper quantiles of the time-to-adoption distribution than the lower quantiles representing the early adopters. Therefore, policies that account for different categories of adopter groups\u2014innovators, early adopters, early majority, late majority, and laggards\u2014are crucial.\n\nManda stated, “Good practices must be utilized from growing, harvesting, and postharvest handling of grains to the processing, packaging, distribution, storage, and preparation before consumption, to ensure the quality and safety of foods. Hence, adopting PICS bags should be encouraged to reduce postharvest losses in our farming systems and as part of food safety measures.”<\/p>\n\nContributed by Anita Akinyomade<\/em>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Postharvest loss has been a significant threat to achieving food security and safety in most developing countries across sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) for many years.<\/p>","protected":false},"featured_media":16362,"template":"","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}}},"tags":[],"science-area":[],"program":[],"location":[27],"news-type":[],"hub":[62],"crop":[],"impact-areas":[],"item-year":[202],"class_list":["post-16361","news-item","type-news-item","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","location-tanzania","hub-eastern-africa","item-year-202"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/iita.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-item\/16361","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/iita.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-item"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/iita.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news-item"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/iita.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-item\/16361\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25305,"href":"https:\/\/iita.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-item\/16361\/revisions\/25305"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iita.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16362"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/iita.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16361"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iita.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16361"},{"taxonomy":"science-area","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iita.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/science-area?post=16361"},{"taxonomy":"program","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iita.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/program?post=16361"},{"taxonomy":"location","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iita.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/location?post=16361"},{"taxonomy":"news-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iita.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-type?post=16361"},{"taxonomy":"hub","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iita.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hub?post=16361"},{"taxonomy":"crop","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iita.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/crop?post=16361"},{"taxonomy":"impact-areas","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iita.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/impact-areas?post=16361"},{"taxonomy":"item-year","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iita.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/item-year?post=16361"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}