By EMMA HOPKINS

Indiana Correspondent

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. — The Purdue Improved Crop Storage (PICS) bag designed by Purdue University researchers to store grain safely away from insects will now be sold on a greater international scale.

Invented by entomology professor Larry Murdock, PICS are made to cut off the oxygen supply of stored grain, with three layers of plastic to prevent insect damage without using chemicals. Murdock used grants from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to introduce it in several African countries over the past decade.

To date, at least 12.5 million bags have been sold. Now, the company formed to sell them – PICS Global, Inc. – is planning to sell the product in larger countries such as India.

“The PICS projects have been supported by the Gates Foundation since the early 2000s, with three projects that covered countries in Africa,” said Laurie Kitch, CEO of the company he founded with Murdock and Dieudonné Baributsa, an associate professor of entomology.

“Now PICS Global, Inc. will expand beyond these countries where the Gates Foundation originally introduced the bags.”

The post-harvest loss prevented by PICS bags allows farmers to market grain when they choose without having to sell early to avoid loss. PICS also lets these farmers provide healthy, clean and chemical-free food to their families year-round.

The PICS project provides demonstration of the bags and training to farmers, so they can get the most use out of them. Kitch also said the licensing agreements through which the bags will be sold in the new countries will take a more commercial approach, with higher royalty rates.

“PICS Global is establishing licensing agreements with partners throughout Asia and Latin America and the Caribbean for manufacturing and distributing the bags, in much the same way as was done in Africa,” he explained.

Though initially designed to store harvested cowpea, PICS bags were proven to also safely store maize, sorghum, wheat, rice, peanut, common bean, hibiscus seed, mung bean, pigeon pea and Bambara groundnut.

PICS Global plans to expand sale of the bags as far as possible, as well as to reorganize, strengthen and improve the supply chain to streamline the process and ultimately reduce the cost of the bags. Kitch said PICS Global sees itself as a social enterprise, and the majority of the money generated by the bags remains in the developing countries in which they are sold, providing income to local businesses as well as farmers in the supply chain.