On-Farm Assessment of Maize Storage and Conservation Technologies in the Central and Northern Republic of Benin

The loss rates and financial profitability of maize storage and conservation technologies were assessed in the central and northern regions of the Republic of Benin. The experimentations were conducted specifically in the villages of Boukoumbe and Savalou and were randomly sampled. A total of four storage technologies were offered to 137 producers: the polypropylene bag, the Purdue Improved Cowpea Storage (PICS) bag, the metal silo, and the improved and closed earthen attic (with or without stock processing). The method by Pantenius was used to determine the loss rates, and the economic method of Gittinger was used to evaluate the profitability of technologies. The results showed that the technologies that recorded fewer losses in the two communes during storage were the PICS bag with grain treatment by chemical conservation measures in Savalou (9.42 +/- 4.64%) and Boukoumbe (2.69 +/- 0.77%), the PICS bag without grain treatment in Savalou (11.71 +/- 2.78%), the metal silo with grain treatment in Boukoumbe (4.92 +/- 1.36%) and the polypropylene bag with grain treatment in Savalou (10.56 +/- 2.80%) and Boukoumbe (4.02 +/- 1.23%). Therefore, the financial analysis results indicated that the most profitable storage technologies were the PICS bag with treatment in the center of Benin and the polypropylene bag without treatment in northern Benin.