Postharvest Technologies for Major Agronomic Crops

Abstract

The global food security is a big challenge for the growers to fulfill the dietary needs of increasing world population. More than one-third of produced food is lost during postharvest operations (harvesting, threshing, drying, transportation, and storage). Overwhelming these issues, mainly in developing countries, can be a good solution to eliminate hunger, improve lifestyle of farmers, reduce pressure on natural resources, and most importantly increase the food availability. In most parts of the world, cereals are staple food in developing countries, which usually accounts for maximum postharvest losses among all the agricultural produce. Inadequate storage of cereal grains and pulses may lead to 50–60% losses due to insects, birds, rodents, and mold growth. These losses can be reduced as low as 1–2% if storage facilities are equipped with modern technologies. In this chapter, we summarize the conventional and modern postharvest technologies of different agronomic crops used in various countries, the causes and status of postharvest losses, and the technological intervention to mitigate these losses.