Call for Abstracts

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Due date: October 9, 2015
Notification date: October 15, 2015

You are invited to submit an abstract for a poster session as part of the symposium, “Advances in Hermetic Storage for Smallholder Farms”, to be held at the 2016 ICE meeting in Orlando, Florida! The symposium highlights research that deals with postharvest issues in the developing world with a focus on smallholder farms. Topics include, but are not limited to, hermetic storage (all disciplines including entomology, mycology, economics, nutrition, etc.), grain drying and moisture measurement, and other topics. Successful applicants will be reserved space to display posters of their research to be presented alongside talks about the current state of postharvest storage for smallholder farmers. Applications will be accepted from now until September 15, 2015 and successful applicants will be notified by September 30, 2015. Please submit all abstracts and questions to PICSinfo@purdue.edu.

Symposium Description

Storage losses to insect pests are major challenges to smallholder farmers. Addressing these challenges in a manner which is accessible to farmers is critical for the continued growth of developing nations. Hermetic storage containers of various sizes- sealed drums, single, double and triple layer plastic bags, metal silos, jerrycans and water bottles- have been disseminated among smallholder farmers to address these pest problems. Using the respiration of the grain and pest insects to drive the process, hermetic containers create biologically-modified atmospheres that stop pest population growth inside the container and reduce storage losses.

Innovations such as the Purdue Improved Crop Storage (PICS) have shown to be effective in protecting dry cereal and legume grains against insect pests and economic studies have revealed that farmers’ adoption of PICS bags results in substantial monetary benefits. Working with the private sector to produce the bags and a network of government and non-government agencies to promote them, PICS has reached millions of farmers within a few years and provides them with the tools to improve their livelihoods.

The symposium will consist of two sections:
First section- will be a series of oral presentations which will focus on sharing advances in understanding of (1) the effectiveness of hermetic technologies in storing food, feed and seed; (2) hermetic mode of action as it affects insect behavior and physiology in the modified atmospheres; (3) public-private partnerships required to commercialize storage innovations among smallholder farmers; (4) farmers’ behaviors in using hermetic technologies to address post-harvest insect pests.
Second section- will consist of a poster session to highlight results on efforts to reduce or mitigate postharvest losses on smallholder farms.