How To Preserve Beans Without Using Chemical
Preservation of food had been a vital aspect of agricultural economics such that it has made continuous yielding of income from harvested crops possible. The aim of every commercial farmer is to have the farm produce stored in such a way that it can last for a sustainable period of time before the next planting season.
Imagine a situation where all the farmers sold out their farm produce within the season of harvest, what becomes of the availability of foods in the market during the subsequent seasons?
In that case, specialist device means to ensure their harvested crops could stay for some seasons so that they may sustain themselves financially through the sale of those preserved farm produce in the subsequent seasons of the year.
Among the popular farm produce stored in Nigeria and the rest of Africa for the above-mentioned purpose are: yam, palm oil, cassava, rice, beans, cocoa yam, potatoes, plantain, and cocoa seeds.
These produce has higher commercial value than others as a result the owners would always prefer a sustainable preservation techniques to ensure continuous cash flow throughout the season.
Bean is one of the high protein foods in Africa and widely eaten by all tribes irrespective of religion and culture. With the easy method in the planting of this beans coupled with its economical way of processing the seeds known as the beans, this food has been seen as one of the cheap food affordable by any average income earner.
The process of preserving the beans has been a serious question following the number of attacks the beans usually have from Beatles.
Beatles are very small insects that usually attack raw beans anywhere they are stored, for this reason most specialist refer to them as beans Beatles, but how can these insects be prevented from consuming and damaging our beans?
Which way is more economical in dealing with these beans attacking insects? And so many other questions had been in the mind of those who wish to preserve their beans either for subsistence purpose or for commercial purpose.
The first step of preserving your beans is to have a closed container to store the beans or a strong bag to store the beans.
Though some farmers use some chemical preservatives in storing these beans, we shall be talking its storage using local materials and affordable items. And among other items one of the popular is the use of dry pepe.
The use of dry Pepe for beans storage had been a longtime culture in many subsistence agriculture, the process is very simple; if beans will be stored in a closed container, the beans will be mixed thoroughly with a dried pepper in the ratio of 100: 0.5 between the beans and the rice respectively.Â
After the mixing they are properly stored in a tightly close container or bag that has very low porosity for air penetration. In another style, most farmers and consumers of beans do apply dry grinded pepe instead of ordinary ungrounded types the believe is that they are more effective than the initial type, however the practice is mostly applied where the quantity of beans are not much.
