Abstract:
Food grains are important part of agriculture commodities and having lion's share of vegetarian's diet. Grain production is continuously showing increasing trend because of introduction of advance technology of crop cultivations. Lack of knowledge of scientific storage resulted in heavy losses after harvesting of food grains. World Bank Report (2005) indicates, approximate 12 to 16 million metric tons of food grains losses observed every year. [1] One of estimate concluded by Rajasthan State Ministry of Agriculture (2014) approx 1.00 to 1.20 millionmetric ton of food grains losses observed every in Rajasthan State due lack of scientific storage capacity, an amount that the stipulates could feed one-third of Rajasthan's poor. The monetary value of these losses amounts to more than Rs 4000 Crores per year. [2]
Food grains are natural contamination mainly influenced by environmental factors such as temperature, storage structure type, moisture and humidity of climate etc (Sashidhar et al, 1994). Food grains are mainly stored in structure made by locally available materials. 6% of total losses are mainly observed due to rotting and rodents attacks on storage structures. Some important variable factors are there to affect the storage losses i.e. length and purpose of storage, types of structure used, grain treatment and pre-storage practices. [3]
Insects, rodents, and micro-organisms cause quantitative as well as qualitative losses during storage. Stored grains are associated with a large number of insect pests. Climatic and geographical conditions plays important role for occurrence and numbers of stored grain insect pests. (La1 and Srivastava, 1984). [4] Grains contamination may cause destruction of 10-15% of the grain and result into undesirable odors and flavors. Insect pests also play a pivotal role in transportation of storage fungi (Sinha and Sinha, 1992). [5]
Keywords: Food grains storage, agricultural storage, agriculture
warehousing, Rajasthan, storage structures.
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