CFTRI-Mysuru leverages AI for food safety, post-harvest management

Account subscription benefits alongside Premium Stories, Editorials, Opinions and more. Unlock these with Subscription The View From India Looking at World Affairs from the Indian perspective. First Day First Show News and reviews from the world of cinema and streaming. Today's Cache Your download of the top 5 technology stories of the day. Data Point Decoding the headlines with facts, figures, and numbers Health Matters Ramya Kannan writes to you on getting to good health, and staying there The Hindu On Books Books of the week, reviews, excerpts, new titles and features. CSIR–CFTRI Director Giridhar Parvatham addressing a press conference in Mysuru on Tuesday. He spoke on the integration of artificial intelligence into CSIR–CFTRI research. PHOTO CREDIT: M.A. Sriram / The Hindu. | Photo Credit: M.A. Sriram Artificial intelligence is making its way into the research laboratories of the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research–Central Food Technological Research Institute (CSIR-CFTRI) in Mysuru, with scientists exploring ways to integrate AI-driven technologies into food processing, food safety, and post-harvest management for societal benefit. Although AI-based research initiatives have gained momentum only recently, CFTRI scientists are working to leverage the technology to address longstanding challenges in the food sector. One key area of focus is tackling fungal contamination in food grains and other commodities during post-harvest storage. Food products stored in silos and warehouses are often vulnerable to fungal infestations, leading to spoilage and deterioration in quality. To address this issue, CFTRI has developed an ozone-based technology that is believed to be effective in preventing fungal contamination. The technology is currently capable of treating food stocks ranging from 50 kg to 100 kg. Scientists are now developing a prototype that can be scaled up for use in large warehouses, where food grains are stored in quantities running into lakhs of tonnes. “Data collection has been completed, and logistics-related aspects are being worked out. We are making progress on the project,” said Giridhar Parvatam, Director of CFTRI. Another area in which AI is being deployed is onion storage and sorting. Onion crops are often affected by fungal infections, resulting in significant post-harvest losses. CFTRI is developing an AI-enabled technology that can identify and separate healthy onions from fungal-infected ones. The institute is also developing AI algorithms for grading and sorting food products to enable faster and more accurat