A Post-Harvest Management Practices among Rice Farmers in Imo State Nigeria

The study analyzed post-harvest management practices among rice farmers in Imo State, Nigeria. This work was inspired by inadequate availability of rice in the market for the masses which reduces food security, with belief that better management processes will reduce food losses. Random sampling procedure was used in selecting 127 rice farmers and data were collected using structured questionnaire was the main tool for data collection. Data collected were analyzed using descriptive (frequency, percentages and  mean) and  inferential statistics. Farmers identified delay in harvesting (98.42%), lack of technical knowledge (95.27%), dependency on traditional threshing methods (94.48%), incomplete threshing (91.30%), improper handling operations (81.10%) as one of the various causes of post harvest losses in their rice production and processing in the study area. The post harvest management practices adopted by the farmers were as cutting the rice stalk (98.42%), reaping the panicles (94.48%), laying out the paddy-on-stalk (93.70%), stacking it to dry (92.12%) and stacking it to dry recording (89.76%). The result from the multiple regression analysis showed that age, educational level, membership of cooperative, household size, farming experience, household size, farming experience and access to credit were found to have significantly influenced on the number of post harvests management practiced by farmers. Similarly, the farmers were also able to identify various constraints to post harvest management as lack of awareness of good post harvest practices and technology, inadequate machinery, lack of incentives to store rice It was therefore recommended that extension agents should be encouraged to increase their campaign on post harvest management practices of rice and organize more training on minimization of post harvest losses on rice.

Key words: Rice, post harvest losses, post harvest practices, post harvest management.