The human population explosion of developing countries worldwide is creating an unprecedented demand for greater production of food grains. In the developing countries, cereal and pulses are produced primarily on small farms. The farmers retain part of the harvest for their own consumption, eventually selling the remainder to the urban population. The preservation of grain quality at the farm level, therefore, is of great importance. This is a difficult task, however, particularly in those tropical and subtropical areas where drying and storage technologies are deficient or completely lacking. Stored-grain insects and fungi cause severe quantitative and qualitative losses, which have grave implications for the availability of food, especially in those areas of the world where grain storage is poorly managed due to the lack of proper knowledge and technology. In order to prevent excessive losses in quality and quantity during grain storage, the practices of artificial drying and cooling aeration, or the use of insecticides, are techniques most commonly utilized by countries which can afford them. Developing countries, however, have resorted primarily to the use of insecticides.

Prof. Mohamed Yousri Hashem, Professor of Pesticide Chemistry, Dept. of Economic Entomology and Pesticide. General manager, Center of Organic Agriculture in Egypt (COAE). Former Dean, Faculty of Agriculture, Cairo University. Ph.D. from Giessen University, Germany. B.Sc and M.Sc from Cairo University.