Advances in Postharvest Management of Cereals and Grains

Part 1 of this collection assesses the causes of postharvest losses. Part 2 reviews advances in storage technologies, including management of insect pests using techniques such as fumigation, controlled atmospheres and biopesticides, as well as control of fungal contamination.

Dr Dirk E. Maier is a Professor and Postharvest Engineer at Iowa State University, USA. Professor Maier is the Founding Director of the Consortium for Innovation in Post-Harvest Loss and Food Waste Reduction. He leads this global innovation partnership aimed at sustainably providing safe and nutritious food for a growing world population. Professor Maier has received a number of awards, guided many students and scholars in their research, and published widely on postharvest management of cereals, with a particular focus on quality preservation and loss prevention and reduction.

Professor Shlomo Navarro is the principal inventor of technologies that are environmentally user friendly for the protection of food without detrimental chemical pesticides and promoted by Food Technology International Consultancy (FTIC) Ltd. he later established Green Storage Ltd. Until his recent retirement to join FTIC Ltd. he was a Principal Scientist in the Department of Food Science, Israel Agricultural Research Organization (ARO), Volcani Center, Bet Dagan.
Prof. Navarro was instrumental in organizing the Department of Stored Products, and has served as Head of the department. He has chaired numerous professional and scientific committees at the ARO including the Research Projects Evaluation Committee on Food Technology, and the Stored Products Advisory Board of the Ministry of Agriculture. He fulfilled numerous positions, among them Director for Academic Affairs, Director for International Cooperation, Deputy Director at the ARO, Chairman of the Committee for Promoting Commercialization of R&D Applications and other 39 different committees at the ARO and at the Ministry of Agriculture.
Professor Navarro is a worldwide expert in the postharvest protection of durable commodities with specific emphasis on insect control and storage engineering technology. He is the leading authority on postharvest technologies, on chilling and aeration systems for grain storage, in the application of modified atmospheres, and hermetic storage in semi-permanent plastic storage structures for use with pulses, grains, seeds, oil seeds, dried fruits, processed foods, and other stable bulk products that need protection from insects, mites and mold damage.
His chapter "Innovative environmentally friendly technologies to maintain quality of durable agricultural produce" in the recently published book by CRC Press entitled "Innovative environmentally friendly technologies for agricultural produce quality" provides an across-the-board summary of the latest know-how in the diverse aspects of protection our food without chemical pesticides.
In 2006 has published the review chapter on "Modified Atmospheres for the Control of Stored-Product Insects and Mites", for the American Association of Cereal Chemists, and in 2007 has published the chapter on "Natural Non-toxic Insect Repellent Packaging Materials" for the CRC Book title: "Frontiers of "Intelligent" and "Active" Packaging for Fruits and Vegetables".
His Handbook of "Aeration in subtropical Climates" for the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), United Nations was the leading authority for aeration in tropical and sub-tropical grain stores and was the forerunner of the book "The Mechanics and Physics of Modern Grain Aeration Management" published by CRC Press in 2002.
Prof. Navarro was the leading scientist for the research, development and implementation of thermal disinfestation of Medjool variety dates as an alternative to methyl bromide in Israel. By 2010, all Israeli dates packing houses have adopted the method for this date variety. He established the conceptual infrastructure for the value and the cost of various parameters of various currently applied disinfestation methods. The transition period to thermal disinfestation was involved in changing the accepted practices and investment in new systems.
He has authored or co-authored more than 380 technical articles in scientific journals, conference proceedings that include 25 books and book chapters. He holds 15 Patents on developing storage structures and technologies.
He has conducted postharvest research in tropical and subtropical countries of the world. In 1972, he was co-founder of the Permanent Committee for the International Conference on Controlled Atmosphere and Fumigation (CAF). He had been Secretary of CAF since its inception and until 2010, when he was elected as the President of CAF Permanent Committee. He has edited six books of proceedings of the CAF Conferences and one book of the International Conference on Stored Product Protection. Since 2001 and until 2007 he served as Convener of the International Organisation for Biological and Integrated Control of Noxious Animals and Plants (IOBC) on Integrated Protection of Stored Products. He has edited five books of proceedings of the IOBC.

Prof. Magan completed his BSc (Hons) Botany and MSc (Plant Pathology) at Exeter University. He completed his PhD at Rothamsted Research (external student Reading University) in 1982. He was awarded his DSc in 2013 for his work on mycotoxins in food chains. He holds the Chair in Applied Mycology at Cranfield University. He has carried out research on food security/safety and spoilage fungi for 35+ years. Current research includes molecular ecology and ecophysiology of spoilage and mycotoxigenic fungi in food production systems, especially the impact of climate change factors on mycotoxins in staple commodities and the development of minimisation and prevention strategies. These include physical approaches to minimising mycotoxin contamination and ecophysiology of biological control agents for improved efficacy against pests/fungal diseases. He has published widely in these research areas with 300+ peer-reviewed Journal papers. He has an H-index of 56 (Scopus) and 73 (Google scholar).