Reap as ye sow -- then store it safely

With global population having recently reached the seven-billion mark, greater attention is being focused on how we can feed a world in which many people are already starving.

Policy-makers who rightfully see this as a problem that can be solved through scientific discovery have devoted much of their attention over the past century to finding new and better ways to increase crop production. While the success of agricultural researchers has been remarkable -- even commendable -- we need to focus our attention on one area of the food production chain that has been ignored, perhaps to our peril.

What do we do with the food once it's been produced?

While public and private resources have been poured into increasing production, very little work and attention has focused on adequately addressing the safe storage of food. Because of this, many of the breakthroughs in food production are literally being wasted because food that should be filling hungry mouths is often spoiled before it can be consumed.

The disparity between the developed and developing world on the issue of safe and efficient storage is stark. While post-harvest losses in the developed world can be as low as one per cent, losses can be as high as 50 per cent in the developing world.

In short, where the need for food is greatest and where population is increasing more rapidly than in the developed world, crop loss is most prevalent.

Consider, for a moment, the implication of this spoilage.

Assuming that two people are fed annually for every one tonne of grain, a country with a population of 50 million people that loses half of its production to spoilage would have to double its crop production from 50 million to 100 million tonnes to feed 100 million people.

With no such loss, that country could feed 100 million people without any increase in production.

Increased production has an economic and environmental impact that needs to be considered as we introduce public policy that is more weighted to production over safe storage.

Crops require use of expensive and valuable resources such as seed, fertilizers, water and fuel, in addition to putting strains on arable land supplies.

If policy-makers focused on a strategy that dramatically reduced crop damage to only two per cent, that same 25 million people could be fed with minimal crop-production increases. Achieving this objective requires a new focus in research as well as a shift in global public policy.

New research in crop storage needs to be funded, conducted, published and made available to set future policy direction. The topics would include new attention on the impact of temperature, moisture and insects on grain spoilage.

New technologies, such as digital-image processing and near-infrared hyperspectral imaging, should be evaluated for their effectiveness in monitoring grain quality.

Along with this new body of research, proper training and guidelines based on these discoveries must be established and distributed to farmers and grain storage managers. Policy-makers must work with universities to establish extension programs.

Finally, universities should develop programs focused on food preservation.

We can no longer view the storage of food as yet another issue for farmers to manage on their own with little or no support. These commodities must be viewed as public assets that address one of the most basic human needs.

Historically, science has provided many of the answers to the puzzle of food production and population increases that economist and population theorist Thomas Malthus identified centuries ago. However, at a time when we have more people in the world to feed than ever before, we need to find new, more creative, more environmentally conscious and less expensive ways to achieve the same result.

The question is, then, how do we get the food we produce to those who need it most?

Digvir S. Jayas is vice-president research and international at the University of Manitoba and a distinguished professor in biosystems engineering who has published 300 articles on topics related to grain drying, handling and storing.

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition June 5, 2012 A10