Radiation processing of food and agricultural commodities

Reducing post-harvest food losses is becoming increasingly important for sustaining food supplies. Appropriate post-harvest processing, handling, storage and distribution practices are as important as the efforts to increase productivity for improving food security, food safety and international trade in agricultural commodities. Preservation of food by ionizing radiation involves controlled application of energy of ionizing radiation such as gamma rays, X-rays, and accelerated electrons to agricultural commodities, food products and ingredients, for improving their storage life, hygiene and safety. The process employs either gamma rays emitted by radioisotopes such as cobalt-60 or high-energy electrons or X-rays generated from machine sources