Importance of Stored Product Insects

Abstract

With the continuous development of human civilization over the last 10,000 years or so, methods to produce food and other materials and to store them for future use have developed enormously. Moreover, significant population growth over the last few centuries aligned with increasing life expectancy and industrialisation has led to the gradual loss of arable land to make way for housing, industries and transportation network. To feed the world's bulging population, food security has become one of the most important priorities for both the developed as well as developing nations across the globe. The concept of food security emerged only in the 1970-90s due to the deepening of global food crisis, specifically affecting the poor in the under developed world. At the World Food Summit of 1996, issues offamine, hunger and food crisis were extensively examined and the behaviour of potentially vulnerable and affected people was identified as a critical aspect, based on which the initial focus, was on the volume and stability of food supplies. Food security was defined in the 1996 World Food Summit (FAO 1996) as: 'availability at all times of adequate world food supplies of basic foodstuffs to sustain a steady expansion of food consumption and to offset fluctuations in production and prices'. The leaders attending the conference also solemnly proclaimed that 'every man, woman and child has the inalienable right to be free from hunger and malnutrition in order to develop their physical and mental faculties'. The universal understanding now is that, apart from targeting to produce more food, we must protect what we produce.