Grain storage losses in the traditional tribal settlements of Biligirirangana Hills, Karnataka, India
Naveena, Nadur L. | Subramanya, Suryanarayana | Setty, Siddappa | Palanimuthu, V.
The forest dwelling tribal Soligas who reside at Biligirirangana Hills cultivate more than 30 different crops including pulses, cereals, millets and vegetable crops as a part of subsistence agriculture. They store more than 80% of their produce in their households for consumption. The present study examines the grain storage practices followed by Soligas and the extent of losses incurred by them, in a traditional agricultural setup. In all, 13 different storage structures used by Soligas were recorded. These included both traditional and modern structures. Among these, plastic oven sac was being used most widely, while Thenemane used for storing maize cobs was the least used structure by the Soligas. An evaluation of these storage structures for safe storage of grains revealed that, none of the traditional storage structures were found to be suitable for grain storage, as they had one or the other disadvantages like, not being moisture or insect or rodent proof. However, the modern structures like, the plastic bins were moisture and rodent proof, but they failed to provide protection against insects. Soligas adopted 10 different grain protection methods for safe storage of grains. Despite their use, the presence of insect infestation ranged from 32.14 to 56.41%. Callosobruchus theobromae was the most common stored grain insect found infesting fieldbean (Dolichos bean) that was stored in most of the settlements, while Tribolium castaneum was the rarest, found infesting only split pigeon pea (Cajanus cajana). The extent of grain damage ranged from 10 to 100% in the samples collected.
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