Economic analysis of threshing and shelling machine service provision to reduce post-harvest loss in Ethiopia

The Sasakawa Africa Association (SAA) has been addressing the neglected post-harvest sector in Ethiopia through promoting improved storage facilities and introducing handheld motorized crop shelling threshing machines. However, technologies are poorly adopted by farmers although traditional methods often result high grain losses low-quality produces due to low awareness of service providers on benefits technologies. This study, therefore, was conducted May 2020 determine socio-economic threshing/shelling machine so as inform how improve adoption machine. A total eight youth group four woredas Oromia Amhara regions were selected for study. In a unimodal rainfall production region, Bako model maize sheller dehusker machines assessed, whereas bimodal region multi-crop thresher evaluated. Primary data sourced Focus Group Discussions (FGD) Key Informant Interviews (KII) secondary extracted document review. Discounted economic parameters such Net Present Value (NPV), Internal Rate Return (IRR) Benefit Cost Ratio (BCR) used determining profitability businesses. actual cashflow analysis area showed that generated negative NPV (USD -970) with IRR value -6% BCR 0.87. On contrary, area, found be positive 1917.3) 1.21 36%. Congruently, resulted USD 8227.5, 3.51 133%. other hand, 2247.5 1.45, 24%. partial budget revealed reduced costs USD158.2 (51.9%) per hectare land compared method. basis minimum food energy requirement, two districts alone, lost would have fed 3,939 individuals or 788 households, teff crop, loss 6,163 adults 1233 households throughout year. Based findings, authors recommend scale-up introduction areas where harvesting seasons exist increase charge working hours- entrepreneurs’ profit words: loss, shelling, threshing, dehusking, analysis, security