Food Irradiation: An Insurance To Food In 21St Century

Poor post harvest practices including inadequate storage and preservation facilities, as well as adverse climatic conditions, cause heavy losses in India’s agricultural and marine produce.

- P. R. Davara & V. P. Sangani

With progressive increase in the quantity of food grains and necessity for longer storage periods, these losses will escalate unless disinfestation measures are improved. Chemical disinfestations methods, such as fumigation, require repeated application, as these do not eliminate insect eggs. They may also leave harmful residues in the treated grains. For ensuring availability of good quality food to the people, the post harvesting technology of handling the agriculture produce should go hand in hand with increased agricultural output. Food irradiation, as this process is known, is an important milestone in food preservation methodology since the successful development of canning in the 19th century.

Food irradiation promises to offer and effective means for minimizing these losses, thereby increasing their availability, and stimulating exports. In 21st century, it will be one of the important tools which can make Indian agricultural produce globally competitive. Export development authorities, commodity boards, food industry, farmers, traders, and exporters of agricultural commodities can be benefited from the use of radiation processing technology.