Between Harvest and Consumption
The post-harvest loss in India is estimated as 10 per cent of which 6.5 per cent occurs during the storage of agricultural produce.
Food grain losses occur during harvest, threshing, transportation, loading, unloading, processing and storage.
This is a great concern for the agricultural scientists and the food industry.
The stored grains are mostly affected by insects, rats, birds, mites, fungi and moisture.
The Food Corporation of India (FCI) stores large quantity of food grains in many go- downs spread all over the country.
Many measures are being thought to control the storage loss of food grains by controlling the causal agents.
No pesticide can be used to control the storage pests.
So one has to adopt other means to control the causal agents.
According to the statistics, the annual storage loss is 14 million tones of food grains worth approximately Rs. 7000 crores.
A huge sum of money lost for the country.
Chemical control of pests in food grains is hazardous for human health.
In order to save the huge loss, alternate control measures such as physical, mechanical, biological and botanical are followed.
Such a great national loss in food production induced the Government of India to start a National Institute in 1968 and names it as Indian Grain Storage Institute at Hapur, UP.
The Institute is evolving a code of storage practices for various crops under different agro climatic conditions.
There are five field stations established under this Institute, at Ludhiana, Hyderabad, Jabalput, Udaipur and Jorhat.
I do not know what was the principle under which these places were selected.
The Institute is also carrying out research on pest control of stored produce.
Monitoring of pesticide residues and presence of mycotoxins in stored grain are being done by the Institute.
The Training Division of the Institute imparts training to trainers and farmers regularly.
In spite of all these activities from 1968 to date (about 40 years), still the post-harvest losses are not come down.
One of the reasons the Institute mentions is that the loss mostly occurs at the farm-level.
The Institute has evolved five slogans.
They are:
Store only dry and clean grains.
Store grains in improved bins.
Fumigate the food grains with ethylene dibromide.
Control rats with anticoagulant.
If we look into the horticultural produce like vegetables, fruits and flowers, the loss due to delay in harvest, method of harvest, handling, packing, transportation, loading, unloading and storing is enormous.
These produces if not sold in time get spoiled and discarded.
The estimate of such losses is very difficult to make, but we virtually see the extent of loss everyday in vegetable and fruit markets in our localities.
Therefore, the wastage of our precious foods are to be controlled by taking appropriate measures.
It is an important area for the agricultural scientists to look into.
Although post-harvest technology departments have sprang up in every State and Central Agricultural Universities, the problem of post-harvest loss remains as an unsolved problem.
Retired Prof.
Article Source: ArticlesBase.com - Between Harvest and Consumption