The Growing Reach of the PICS Bag: Dieudonne Baributsa
Dieudonne Baributsa leads an international extension and engagement program delivering innovative postharvest solutions that aim to serve 500 million smallholder farmers. Baributsa uses the Purdue Improved Crop Storage (PICS) Bag to reach these smallholder farmers. The PICS Bags initially saw their use in West Africa as storage for cowpeas. The use of this product has now expanded to several crops and regions of Africa. It has recently made its way into Central and South America as well as Asia.
Several Purdue faculty members, such as Baributsa, made the expansion of PICS technology possible. Baributsa is a professor of entomology here at Purdue. He joined Purdue as a team manager in 2009. The issue of crop storage is personal to him, as he experienced it during his early years. Growing up, his family stored crops by applying pesticides like DDT, which is toxic to people and sometimes does not even work.
Hermetic bags are a cost-efficient storage solution that provides effective chemical-free protection to grain during storage. Because PICS bags eliminate crop storage losses and extend shelf life, farmers can decide when to sell, which enhances food security and income. The PICS bag outreach activities have reached an estimated 12 million farmers in 70,000 villages, which means benefits are reaching an estimated 75-100 million people. Over 50 million PICS bags were sold to farmers by December 2023, leading to a cash flow of $3 billion made or saved by farmers.
The PICS Bag has three layers – two high-density polyethylene liners fitted inside a woven polypropylene sack. Users of the bag fill it with the crop of their choice and seal the top by tying it tightly. The bag’s low permeability to air slowly deprives insects of oxygen, killing them off. With the insects gone, the quality and quantity of stored crops are retained over an extended period. Farmers like the technology because it is reusable and price-competitive compared to alternatives.
“I saw my involvement in the PICS Program as an opportunity to address some of these persistent issues faced by family farms in rural Africa”
Dieudonne Baributsa
“The PICS Bag, initially created to store cowpeas, has expanded beyond this particular use,” explains Baributsa. “Smallholder farmers can now use this technology to store more than 15 crops including corn, rice, beans, wheat, and processed foodstuffs such as flour.” The effectiveness of the bag has caught the attention of major funders, including the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and USAID.
PICS now has a global impact and is no longer run solely out of Purdue with Purdue faculty. “The concern was availability through the private sector,” explained Baributsa. “People had no trouble using the bag, but getting their hands on it was the limiting factor, whether due to the supply or cost. PICS Global, a social enterprise, was created to commercialize PICS bags to alleviate the supply issue. This ensures the technology gets into the hands of the people who need it most.”
To learn more about PICS Global, visit their website.