Abstract

Crop residues account for approximately 5.5 billion dry tons of agricultural waste and more than one-third of food produced is unconsumed. Loss of food and nutrients at a time of heightened global food demand and agricultural waste contributing to agricultural greenhouse gas emissions need to be mitigated as we continue to address the global population increase. Cold plasma is a novel treatment technology that has shown promising effects on increasing the shelf-life of stored food and feed products and processing and treating biomass. Optimization of such treatment technologies to reduce agricultural waste for industrial bioprocessing and microbiological contaminates in food and feed products can help address the agricultural and food waste. This requires evaluating reactive gas species kinetics, physical properties, mechanical properties, and quality parameters of stored commodities. This presentation will discuss some of the issues with farm-stored grains and oilseeds, and outlines methods for their prevention, detection, control and increased utilization.

Speaker Bio

Dr. Janie McClurkin Moore is an Assistant Professor in the Biological and Agricultural Engineering Department at Texas A&M University in College Station. She is a native of Columbus, Ohio. She received her B.S. in BioEnvironmental Engineering from North Carolina A&T State University and her M.S. and Ph.D. in Agricultural and Biological Engineering from Purdue University. She oversees the Post-Harvest Engineering and EDucation (PHEED) research team. Dr. Moore’s current research centers around three different areas 1) oxidative depolymerization of lignocellulosic biomass, 2) the inactivation of mold and mycotoxin in stored grains and 3) innovative instruction strategies for Biological and Agricultural Engineering students. She was the Montague Center for Teaching Excellence Fellow in 2020, and received the President’s Citation from the American Society of Agricultural and Biological Engineering in 2021.