Food systems of the world/ edited by Mohmmad Shafi and Abdul Aziz

Feeding the billions is the most pres sing problem of the Developing World and for that food production must be increased. The availability of irrigation water, high yielding varieties of seeds, chemical fertilizers and organic manures, insecticides and pesticides are considered the essential bases of a flourishing agri culture. The basic purpose of the papers in corporated in this volume is to exa mine how the various components of food production and consumption are inter-related. In order to maximize pro duction, the various processes of pre and post harvest technology should be seen in the holistic perspective and not in isolation. While making efforts to increase food production, the food losses in the post harvest processes should be minimized. The post production losses in many tropical countries exceed 30 per cent. These losses occur in crop drying, threshing, storage, marketing and distri bution. In India, the storage losses are estimated to vary between six to ten per cent. It is reported that six rats con sume as much foodgrains as a man. Thus efforts should be made to increase the production and minimize the losses by taking an integrated view of the whole system.

The General Assembly of the Inter national Geographical Union appointed an International Commission on Com parative Research in Food Systems of the World on the occasion of twenty fourth Geographical Congress in Tokyo in 1980. The papers in this volume are an outcome of an International Sympo sium on Food Systems held at Aligarh.