26.1 Introduction
In the past, the main management efforts were focused on preharvest agriculture,
and only recently has there also been emphasis on post-harvest management.
This chapter will provide a basic overview on the hygiene management of dry
commodities where the moisture content of the products is less than 17%, such
as grain, dry fruits and vegetables, spices, flour products and other sorts of dry
food.
At least seven thousand years ago when humans started to settle and cultivate
the land, they began to store food. There are two important reasons for food
storage. First, to enable the farmer to keep the commodity for the time that it can
be sold at a good price. Second for security, countries import food for local
consumption; they have to keep stocks of grains and other commodities for
emergency use. Today, grain is the main source of food in the world. About 80%
of the food used by people originates from plants such as wheat, rice, millet,
sorghum, rye, barley, legumes, soy, cassava, sweet potato, coconuts and banana.
In most developing countries the yearly consumption of grain per capita is
180 kgà (1/2 kg/day) and most of the proteins come from plant origin,
compared with developed countries where most of the proteins for human
requirement originating from animal sources.
When considering the distribution of grain: in the Eastern part of the world
where rice is the main grain culture, Thailand is the biggest producer followed by
China, Japan and Indonesia, whereas in the West, wheat is the main grain culture
in the USA, Australia and Europe, and in South America corn. In general the total
26 Improvingthe control of insectsin foodprocessing
E. Shaaya, The Volcani Center, Israel, R. Maller, Pepsi Co., USA
M. Kostyukovsky, The Volcani Center, Israel, and L. Maller,
United States Department of Agriculture