What is ‘irradiation’, technological innovation India is piloting to make onions last more time? Know positive aspects for buyers

Selling prices of tomatoes skyrocketed, working a enormous blow to the pockets of the typical male. Onions often have the identical fate at occasions and turn into way too high priced for an crucial vegetable. The Governing administration of India is now planning to deal with the recurring onion scarcity challenge with a new know-how that aims to enhance the shelf lifetime of the vegetable, therefore bringing down post-harvest losses.

Apart from procuring a more substantial share of (3 lakh tonnes additional) of onions as buffer stock for 2023, the governing administration is also piloting a know-how referred to as ‘irradiation’ of of onion with the Bhabha Atomic Investigate Centre (BARC), Ministry of Purchaser Affairs Secretary Rohit Kumar Singh reported on Sunday. As for each the government’s system, onions will be ‘irradiated’ prior to they are stocked in chilly storage. Here’s all you will need to know.

What is irradiation?

Simply just set, irradiation is the process of exposing any object to ionising radiation. Much more exclusively, meals radiation exposes food and food items packaging to radiation from gamma rays, x-rays or electron beams. In case of onions, they are exposed to gamma ray irradiation which will help in productive preservation by protecting against them from sprouting, thus extending the shelf everyday living and reducing spoilage.

The discovery of meals irradiation is credited to Lewis Stadler at the College of Missouri in the US with it staying 1st performed on plant seeds. The method has been successfully used to specific cereals, onions, potatoes and garlic.

What is the government’s strategy?

The govt strategies to avoid the “significant” publish-harvest reduction of onion in India. Onions are observed to rot and begin sprouting even when in cold storage. The irradiation program aims to bring submit-harvest lossed down from 25% to 10-12%. Onion price ranges commonly come below pressure for around 20 times. The governing administration is assured of beating the difficulty this time through the further buffer inventory and irradiation technological innovation.

The govt is performing the Irradiation experiment with 150 tonnes of onion. “On a pilot foundation, we are experimenting with onion irradiation of 150 tonnes with gamma radiation from Cobalt-60 at Lasalgaon in Maharashtra. This will maximize the shelf everyday living of onions,” the Ministry of Buyer Affairs Secretary said. If effective, irradiation will help in escalating the “recovery rate” of onion to close to 88-90%.

Is it risk-free? How does it reward consumers?

Irradiation is confirmed to be safe in numerous tests done by the likes of the Globe Health Firm (WHO) and US Foodstuff and Drug Administration (Fda).

For people, irradiation does not just provide a product or service with a for a longer time shelf daily life but also minimizes danger of having sick owing to a foodborne ailment. Irradiation inhibits sprouting or ripening and kills organisms responsible for spoilage and foodborne health issues. It also helps towards invasive pests and insect contamination. 

(Inputs from PTI)