SIGNIFICANCE OF GRAIN STORAGE LOSSES

It is well known that the process of improving total food production is slow and costly. Therefore, the first & the foremost step to increase the effective food grain production is to protect and preserve by effective pest management and scientific warehousing, what has been grown & harvested for human consumption and by improving local processing methods to retain inherent natural nutritional value of produce. Therefore, what has been reaped must be protected & then the future bigger harvests need to ensured by higher productivity & larger crop areas. The whole nation should be made to realize that ‘a grain saved is a grain produced’. Therefore the grain saved from the ravages of insects, rodents, fungi, etc., are called a “hidden harvest”. Every year the country can save more than three years of Production inputs, if present losses of 10% are minimized by improving Grain Stock. Technology and practices at farm level. This concept has very high eco-friendly approach also.

The unique problems of storage at the farm level are:

• The most important factor that affects the rate of deterioration of stored food is the climate. In the tropics where we are situated, the year round high temperature and high humidity allow pests such as rats and insects to feed and multiply throughout the year. Whereas the cold weather of the temperate climate reduces multiplication/reproduction and feeding of these pests. In very cold climate the low temperature itself kills most of the stored grain pests;
• Over and above that, we do not have sufficient number of trained personnel in the discipline of food preservation and maintenance of quality;
• Where 70-80% of the food grains produced in the country are stored at innumerable storage points spread over 0.6 million villages, by the farmers who are unaware about the improved storage methods and have insufficient capital even to provide for the necessary scientific handing and improved storage bins.
• And above all they have pessimistic attitude & believe that nothing can be done to prevent losses suffered fro stored food grains because insects appear on the grain naturally.

Prevention of these losses would result in:

More food for consumption by the farmers and public as a whole; more food available for farmers to sell; higher earnings & good living standards of farmers; more wholesome food available for non farming population; better quality and competitiveness of export commodities in world trade; and sound economy for the country and improvement of its international standing, and it shall become permanent exporter of food grains.

Further, the comparison of the post harvest losses, storage losses and the import of food grain for the years 1960-82 substantiate the above facts. (Refer Exhibit No. 2.3).

METHODOLOGY

As proposed in the proposal and the approach paper submitted for this study, the methodology adopted in completing the study was to collect the data mainly through the secondary sources. Attempt was made to collect some information from primary sources also. Te same has been discussed as below:

Scrutiny of Existing Sources

Effort was made to scrutinize as much as possible the details available from the several state and government institutions, departments, agencies which had compiled and published reports, articles on Grain Storage Losses.

Further, a large number of books, reports, journals, periodicals on this subject and other related areas were perused.

Thus the secondary information was mostly collected by desk research using the following sources

i) Periodicals
ii) Journals
iii) Publications
iv) Research institutions
v) Universities
vi) Experts
vii) Projects, etc.

Some of the Periodicals, Journals, Publications which were referred to or correspondence that was dome with, during the course of the study were amongst the list as shown n Annexure-I.

Some of the Institutes and Organizations which were contacted for this study are shown in the List in Annexure – II.       Back