PLASTICULTURE TECHNOLOGIES IN POST-HARVEST MANAGEMENT: GRAIN STORAGE AND DRYING

Abstract

India supports nearly 16% of world's population with 2.4% land resource and 4% water resource and lately the dwindling quality and the vagaries of the availability of these resources are raising serious questions on the sustainability of the agricultural practice.As much as 50%-60% ereal grains can be lost during the storage stage lack of technical scientific storage methods can reduce these losses to as low as 1%-2%. Storage losses constitute a major share of food grain loss in postproduction operations. Use of Shade net structure of 70% with evaporative cooling is popular for short term storage of farm produce. Similarly Polyhouse dryers can be used for drying of fresh produce for safe storage with better post harvest quality. Foldable plastic box was superior for fruits and vegetable transportation with minimum losses. Such kind of Plasticulture technologies required for assistance in second green revolution in post harvest sector