Abstract
The study was a descriptive survey aimed at identifying the postharvest technology information and skills needed by rural women farmers in order to reduce storage losses of cowpea grains. The study was carried out in Kano State's three Agricultural Zones of Rano, Dambatta and Gaya. The population of the study was 7,156, made up of agricultural extension officers (EO 1600), rural women farmers (RWF 5, 470) and agricultural education lecturers (AEL 86). The sample for the study was 465 derived through purposive and random sampling from 18 communities that has predominance of cowpea production in the state. A structured questionnaire, validated by five experts and a reliability of 0.78 was used for data collection. The data were analyzed using mean, standard deviation to answer the research questions while ANOVA statistics was used to test the null hypotheses at 0.05% level of significance. Findings from the study indicated that rural women farmers in Kano State need postharvest technology information and the accompanying skills on the use of hermetic bags, proper drying of grains to about 13 – 11% moisture content and protection of grains from pest attack. Trainings can be organized by stakeholders (NGOs, agricultural lecturers, government storage agencies) on the best practices in grain storage to the farmers. Equally, the farmers require that the information be appropriate, timely and relevant to their cowpea processing and scaled down to the size and farm level activities.
Keywords: Postharvest Losses, Postharvest Technology Information, Hermetic Storage, Suitable Moisture Content (SMC)
Publication Date: 2026-07-15