Assessment of the Economic Suitability of Indoor Storage for White-Coloured Sweet Potatoes Roots Under Tanzania Conditions

Abstract

The study aimed to reduce sweet potato postharvest losses while increasing income from sweet potato-based products in Morogoro, Tanzania. The economic suitability of indoor storage technologies for the storage of white-coloured sweet potato roots under Tanzania conditions was assessed. The sample was composed of sweet potato marketers and traders in Morogoro, Tanzania. They were selected after an extensive sampling procedure done step-wise. The first step involved using Kothari’s recommended purposive sampling method to select wards. Simple random sampling was used in the second step to choose the markets, and the snowballing sampling approach was used in the third stage to choose the respondents. A total of 160 sweet potato vendors (from four markets in four wards) were selected. Data collected were the cost of labour, cost of purchasing and transportation of white-coloured sweet potato roots and the selling price of white-coloured sweet potato roots to determine net income. Data were analysed using cost-benefit analysis.