Small policy changes can accelerate the adoption of improved on-farm storage among smallholder farmers

Michael Brander, Zewdu Abro, Menale Kassie, Wolfgang Mittmann, Lukas Stiefel and Matthias Huss

World Development, 2025, vol. 195, issue C

Abstract: Reducing food losses is a significant and often overlooked opportunity to bolster global food security and enhancing the resilience and sustainability of global food systems. Food losses are highest in low-income countries where millions of smallholder farming households remain particularly vulnerable. As yet, smallholders’ adoption of loss-minimizing storage technologies, such as hermetic storage bags, remains low. Here, we study the effects of two types of policy options on the adoption of improved on-farm storage in the case of Ethiopia. Using a randomized controlled trial, we show that a small partial subsidy, which mirrors the current fiscal burden on these technologies, can lead to a sixfold increase in the adoption of hermetic storage bags (from 11% to 67% adoption). While providing a free trial bag did not increase purchase rates later-on, it did rapidly improve household food security. These findings underscore the need for policymakers in low-income countries to consider reducing fiscal barriers on post-harvest technologies, as is common for other agricultural technologies, to contribute to enhanced food security and more resilient food systems.

Keywords: Post-harvest losses; Hermetic storage; Technology Adoption; Food Security; RCT (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:wdevel:v:195:y:2025:i:c:s0305750x25002037

DOI: 10.1016/j.worlddev.2025.107118

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