Innovations in postharvest technologies for food security and safety, and for value addition to agricultural residues

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Food security and safety issues must be met within the context of population growth beyond 7 billion, climate change, and environmental degradation. Globally, a third of harvested food is lost to damage, rot, and vermin before it reaches the consumer. Preventing such losses will help ensure food security and relieve the need to deforest land for food production. To address these issues, the program’s objectives are to: 1) develop methods using electro-technologies to dry and thermally process crops to prevent degradation; 2) develop storage technologies for produce to maintain quality and increase nutrient content; and 3) develop electro-technological processes to use waste biomass to produce biofuels and bioactive compounds. The program’s goals are thus to make total use of harvested biomass as a source of nutrition that can be safely consumed, and of bioenergy and bioproducts from residual biomass. My research in drying and heat treating foods is focused on developing electro-technology systems (eg. microwaves (MW)) to generate heat directly in the biomass. This is more rapid and efficient than using external heat sources; and since exposure time is shorter, food quality is less affected. We have used MWs to extract valued compounds from biomass, pasteurize eggs, and disinfest grains. The proposed program continues this line of study which was supported by funding from my previous Discovery Grant. We are now working on using high voltage electric-fields to dry temperature-sensitive foods; this also causes protein denaturation, which can be used to address allergenic properties of proteins (eg. gluten). My recent work on storage focused on using physical stresses to stimulate antioxidant production in produce during storage. This has led to studies on hyperbaric treatment of produce prior to storage to improve quality and to extend shelf life without refrigeration. We will develop and adapt this technology for field use in regions that lack cold chain systems.  The results of the work of my previous Discovery Grant program on MW-assisted extraction of bioactive components from biomass has led us to study the use of plant residues as sources of biofuels and bioenergy. We are developing a MW-assisted process for use at the farm level to separate components of lignocellulosic materials for production of biofuels. The purified material fetches a higher price which will provide additional income to farmers, and is compact which will lower transportation costs to bio-refineries. We will use a multi-disciplinary approach to address the biological and engineering aspects of research questions to achieve viable solutions leading to a holistic training opportunity for HQP.