Grain Monitoring Tools Help Farmers Keep Grain Healthy

By Laurie Bedord

In today’s grain market, farmers can’t afford to lose even a single bushel of stored grain. Yet, keeping a crop healthy when it’s stored longer and in larger bins continues to be a problem that plagues the industry: About $12 billion in grain is lost to spoilage every year.

While temperature cables hung strategically inside the bin to detect hot spots caused by grain respiration, moisture, insect infestation, mold, or fungus have offered farmers some solace, adoption of the technology has remained low.

GAINING BETTER INSIGHTS
According to Naeem Zafar, around 30% of the grain being stored worldwide is monitored by some form of technology; most measure temperature, and only a few measure moisture. Other experts estimate that percentage is far lower.