Guide to Best Post Harvest Practices
When it comes to harvesting crops, attention needs to be paid at all stages of crop production right from the sowing the seeds, providing the right nutrition to the crops, post-harvest measures, to selling the produce at the distribution centres.
What is Post-harvest?
Post-harvest refers to the activities after harvest that ensures the preservation of commodities in terms of safety, quality and quantity. This would include handling, storage and transportation of agricultural commodities.
What Are Herbicides?
Post-harvest has to be completed in a defined time-frame since the crop starts deteriorating post-separation from the parent plant. This stage of crop production is vital since the final quality of the product, whether it is for direct consumption or being used as a raw material for processed foods, depends on it.
There are leading players in the post-harvest
solutions space like Decco that ensure no compromise in crop quality by using high-grade coatings, fungicides, growth regulators, sanitizers, and anti-scald. Decco also provides equipment solutions for packing in some countries.
Services provided by Decco include residue analysis, fungicide residue monitoring, weight loss studies, and tank concentrations. Decco has a team of technical experts in post-harvest methods. Additional services you can expect from Decco are spore trials, IPM programs, and resistance management.
Importance of Food Security and Grain Storage
There is a direct connection between post-harvest management and food security. When there are post-harvest losses due to mismanagement, you have food loss and wastage, leading to lower food security. This results in a chain reaction with an adverse effect on farmer's incomes since they lose a sizeable percentage of their yield due to degradation of quality. Farmers with small landholdings are the worst affected, suffering changes in their livelihood as they are unable to meet the needs of their families.
Mismanagement during post-harvest also produces low-quality crops due to mould, insects, and debris. These contaminants pose a danger to consumers due to the presence of substances like aflatoxin and ochratoxin.
There are two types of storage methods, temporary and long-term. Temporary storage yields the best results when the grain is kept post the drying period. The three types of temporary storage methods are aerial storage, ground or drying-floor based storage, and open timber platforms.
Long-term storage methods include storage baskets or cribs, calabashes or earthenware pots, clay jars, solid wall bins or silos made of mud or clay, and underground storage pits. Storage baskets or cribs are used in humid countries. Underground storage pits are found in the drier regions of India, Turkey and parts of Africa.
The best grain storage solution in developing countries is metal silos. Metal silos protect crops from storage insect pests. These are made from galvanized iron sheets and have hermetic sealing making these storage solutions airtight.
A roadblock for widespread usage of metal silos in developing countries is high procurement costs, leading to food grains stored in temporary alternatives like cover and plinth or leasing warehouses. It is also important to decentralize storage and use a PPP model for creating storage facilities through the BOT or build operate transfer basis. With private sector participation, there would be higher competition and lower storage costs.
There are hermetic storage bags that are long-term solutions and don't require fumigants. These bags have ultraviolet resistant PVC membranes that are airtight and provide protection against light. The grains get a natural and unpolluted environment.
What are Fumigants?
Fumigants are gas-based pesticides used for pest control. Post-harvest solution providers like Decco have potent fumigants containing aluminium phosphide pest control in animal feed, raw agricultural products and processed foods.
The process of using fumigants to protect crops from pests is known as fumigation. Pests account for a major part of post-harvest losses.
Some fumigants that are ammonia-free formulations ensure fast-gas release. With the advancement in technology, atmospheric gases are replacing man-made gases for controlled atmosphere treatments organically. The preferred atmospheric gas for stored products and grains is carbon dioxide, though they are now being used for fresh commodities as well. For this reason, carbon dioxide comes under the category of natural or organic fumigants.