Research Proposal
Budget: $10 – $30 USD
Task Description:
Context of the task
The overall objective of GreenDriedFruits is to provide sustainable solutions for post-harvest pest management in dried fruit commodities (i.e., figs, dates, and currants) that can be efficiently and easily adopted by the farmers/processors to substitute conventional treatments (mostly based on intense use of toxic insecticides or on the use of modified or controlled atmosphere). In essence, the goal is to overcome the main drawbacks of the current pest control methods (toxic insecticides which are damaging to the environment and health; modified or controlled atmosphere which is too costly for small farmers/processors) by developing methodologies based on thermal treatments that use extreme low or temperatures.
Colleagues from a variety of disciplines (entomology, IT, food chemistry, quality preservation, storage engineering, and integrated pest management) will: determine and test species-specific and commodity-specific thermal treatments protocols with high insecticidal effectiveness; develop and test a user-friendly Sensor-App system prototype to facilitate the adoption of the thermal treatments protocols in automation and under highly controlled conditions; set-up demonstration facilities to maximize knowledge transfer, offering training sessions, and to collect upstream feedbacks.
Task
Taking advantages of species-specific and commodity-specific thermal treatments protocols, a Sensor-App system in beta version, and demonstration facilities, your research goals is to develop a research strategy:
· To understand, predict and optimize thermal treatments technology adoption
· To understand, predict and optimize the effect of thermal treatments technology on switching from conventional to organic agriculture
Specifically, write a small proposal describing how you would approach these research goals using, as application, one of the following country/product combinations: Greece/ Corinthian, Turkey/dried figs/ or Israel/dates.
Context of the task
The overall objective of GreenDriedFruits is to provide sustainable solutions for post-harvest pest management in dried fruit commodities (i.e., figs, dates, and currants) that can be efficiently and easily adopted by the farmers/processors to substitute conventional treatments (mostly based on intense use of toxic insecticides or on the use of modified or controlled atmosphere). In essence, the goal is to overcome the main drawbacks of the current pest control methods (toxic insecticides which are damaging to the environment and health; modified or controlled atmosphere which is too costly for small farmers/processors) by developing methodologies based on thermal treatments that use extreme low or temperatures.
Colleagues from a variety of disciplines (entomology, IT, food chemistry, quality preservation, storage engineering, and integrated pest management) will: determine and test species-specific and commodity-specific thermal treatments protocols with high insecticidal effectiveness; develop and test a user-friendly Sensor-App system prototype to facilitate the adoption of the thermal treatments protocols in automation and under highly controlled conditions; set-up demonstration facilities to maximize knowledge transfer, offering training sessions, and to collect upstream feedbacks.
Task
Taking advantages of species-specific and commodity-specific thermal treatments protocols, a Sensor-App system in beta version, and demonstration facilities, your research goals is to develop a research strategy:
· To understand, predict and optimize thermal treatments technology adoption
· To understand, predict and optimize the effect of thermal treatments technology on switching from conventional to organic agriculture
Specifically, write a small proposal describing how you would approach these research goals using, as application, one of the following country/product combinations: Greece/ Corinthian, Turkey/dried figs/ or Israel/dates.