The government’s foodgrain inventory is set to balloon to a new peak of over 75 million tonnes by June. Given the available pucca warehousing space for a mere 45.5 million tonnes, huge quantities of precious foodgrain will inevitably have to be stacked in the open in makeshift food depots. Even if the stockpile is covered with polythene sheets – hopefully, it will be – the peril of damage caused by rain, wind, insect-pests and rodents cannot be ruled out.
A sizeable part of grain stocks is, in fact, stored in the open under cover and plinth (CAP) facilities even today. Thanks to the myopic foodgrain management policies, food stocks have been accumulating at a pace that is much faster than the expansion of warehousing capacities. The storage space crunch is set to turn worse this year because even the available open area for keeping foodgrain is likely to fall short of requirement. There is, thus, a need to consider unconventional methods to store staple cereals.
Temporary, yet damage-proof, storage techniques are imperative because grain losses are not confined to government foodgrain depots. These occur routinely in the entire food chain, including in farmers’ fields, grain markets (mandis) and during transit, storage and distribution.
Sadly, the CAP storage method – which was devised way back in the 1970s when food inventories began to mount – is still being followed without either refining it or trying alternative systems of short-term storage.
No doubt, the CAP storage method has served well to hold wheat for a few months, but it is unsuitable for keeping paddy or rice. Besides, going by the evidence gathered by experts in Bhopal-based Central Institute of Agricultural Engineering (CIAE), this system is far from foolproof and needs certain modifications.
One problem with the CAP system is that it lacks provisions for the aeration of grains, which is vital. Besides, the practice of using black polythene to cover the stacked bags causes temperature to rise within the structure during summers, especially if the grains have been lying for over a year. “This might cause deterioration in the nutritional and functional qualities of grains,” says R T Patil and P C Bargale of CIAE. This often creates hot spots in stockpiles and causes moisture to migrate from warmer to cooler areas, thus, leading to the caking effect or lumping of grains. This adversely affects the milling and baking quality of wheat. The way out suggested by these experts is incredibly simple. Merely using white plastic sheets, instead of the black ones, to cover foodgrain can reduce the temperature build-up in the CAP to half.
This aside, experts feel that such other means of temporary storage as flexible silos, pit or underground stores, over-ground storage bunkers and plastic membrane grain bags that have been used with considerable success in some other grain surplus countries, need to be tried out in India. Some of these may prove effective in minimising foodgrain losses owing to sudden changes in weather, not only in government’s food storage complexes but also in farmers’ fields, mandis, railway’s grain-loading platforms and elsewhere.
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Of these, two methods specially recommended for use in different situations are: pre-fabricated re-locatable warehouses (or flexible silos) and membrane bags. Movable warehouses are essentially modular, pre-fabricated structures with a tubular steel frame covered by PVC-coated polyester fabric. The capacity of these structures can vary from 50 to 3,000 tonnes. Since the structure can be easily built or dismantled, it is commonly used by food aid and relief organisations for emergency warehousing purposes. In India, it can be handy for short-term safe storage of grains on railway platforms to prevent losses in the stocks kept for transit.
The use of grain storage bags made of polymer membrane, on the other hand, is recommended for use in farmers’ premises and also in mandis to minimise the damage to grains kept in bulk (without bagging) for periods varying from a few days to a few months prior to sale. These help protect freshly-harvested grains against unexpected rain showers — the kind that caused considerable loss to wheat in north-western states over the past few days.
Indeed, these methods of averting loss of foodgrain should be tried out, and promoted if successful since these are cost-effective.
surinder.sud@gmail.com