A web-based cereal storage monitoring system.

Abstract

1n Uganda, as well as other developing countries, the major food crops such as cereal grains are normally seasonal crops. Therefore, the food produced in one harvest period must be stored for gradual consumption until the next harvest. Hermetic (i.e. airtight) storage systems have been developed but they have drawbacks such as insects’ infestation and limited capacity. The absence of storage monitoring technologies often force the smallholders to sell their produce immediately after harvest to avoid post-harvest losses from storage pests and pathogens. The main objective of this project was to design and develop a web-based storage monitoring system for maize cereals that tracks and regulates selected parameters necessary for conducive storage (i.e. temperature, moisture content and relative humidity), since it is observed that hermetic storage method is more reliable and efficient compared to traditional storage practices in developing countries that cannot guarantee protection against. major storage pests of staple food crops like maize. Hence, hermetic storage method has been used in this developed system. The developed system is able to automatically take the values of these parameters in real time and they are sent to a web application that is easily stored and interpreted for further analysis.