When fresh produce is rejected because of how it looks or when it rots quickly because there’s no refrigeration to protect it, those fruits and vegetables are wasted. As a result, the farmers who grew them lose potential income to support their families. Solar Conduction Dryers can help solve this challenge.
Solar Conduction Dryers are solar-powered food dehydrators that dry foods like tomatoes, peas, carrots, garlic, ginger, onions, potatoes, and more. In just four hours, produce can be preserved for six months to a year longer. No electricity required.
From this episode of People Fixing the World, a series from the BBC World Service:
“The dryer is supplied by a company called Science For Society (S4S). Every few days they collect what the women have dried and take it back to their factory. There it gets processed and packaged for delivery to restaurants and food companies. S4S estimates the solution prevents 40,000 tonnes of food from going to waste every year. They’ve supplied over 800 solar dryers to women in rural India. Many of whom would have struggled to find regular work.”
Related reading: This Solar-Powered Dehydrator Could Help Small Farmers Reduce Food Waste.
Watch these related videos next:
• Cook food using the sun’s heat: Build a solar oven
• DIY Solar Oven, a Kazoo How-To
• The Solar Grandmothers of Ambakivao, Madagascar
• The Surprising Places We Waste Energy
• Can rotting vegetables make electricity?
• Using seawater and sunlight to grow sustainable food in the desert
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