Early this yr when farmers within the area have been promoting tomatoes at a throwaway worth, Maharashtra’s Nitin Ramesh Dhingre took a good move. He transformed the recent produce into dried merchandise the usage of a sun dryer.
“When there’s sufficient provide out there, costs scale back. Previous, we have been promoting tomatoes for Rs 50 in keeping with crate of 20 pounds, which involves Rs 2.5 for 1 kg. We have been not able to even get its price of manufacturing. Moreover, we need to spend on harvesting the crop and transporting it to the marketplace,” the 38-year-old farmer tells The Higher India.
“Since closing December, I began drying the surplus produce. For an identical quantity, for which I’d get Rs 50, now I earn Rs 350,” provides Nitin, who grows tomatoes, grapes, and onions on a five-acre land in his village Matur.
Prior to now 5 months, he has been ready to earn an extra source of revenue of Rs 1 lakh via promoting extra produce that will another way pass to waste. “First of all, many farmers puzzled me on why was once I making an investment in a sun dryer and what receive advantages it would convey me. Additionally they mocked me pronouncing it will now not be a successful choice, however as of late, they themselves are prepared to make use of the sun dryers,” smiles Nitin.
Together with 13 farmers, he has been ready to put in a three-tier sun dryer with the capability to concurrently dry as much as 500 kg of produce in one cycle. Like Nitin, no less than 50,000 farmers around the nation had been ready to harvest advantages from extra produce, due to Indore-based Varun Raheja.
Varun runs Raheja Sun Meals Processing Pvt Ltd to assist farmers building up the shelf existence in their produce and derive higher source of revenue from it.
Foldable sun dryers on the rescue
Varun, a mechanical engineering graduate, spent 4 years of his school specializing in researching farmer suicide charges and techniques to extend their source of revenue.
“I like nature and I hate waste. On every occasion I see a fruit popping out of a tree this is simply depending on soil and water, I understand it as magic. On every occasion I noticed farmers throwing their produce, I’d marvel about techniques to maintain it in order that they may be able to promote it for a greater worth. I discovered sun dryers as a sustainable selection,” the 26-year-old tells The Higher India.
Since his first yr in school, Varun did an internship underneath Padma Shri Janak Palta McGilligan, who teaches the benefits of solar energy to scholars in her finding out centre. By way of the top of engineering, he got here up with a method to assist farmers flip extra produce into value-added merchandise via the usage of sun dryers.
To reach this, he implemented his mechanical engineering experience to support sun dryers, growing foldable and conveyable ones with capacities starting from 20 to 100 pounds.
“We now have two forms of designs — the primary is foldable and conveyable, and the opposite is a hard and fast polyhouse design. We now have designed foldable ones, particularly for small and marginal farmers. Those are 40 ft lengthy sun dryers that may be folded right into a five-foot field. This is helping us set up them in far flung places,” says Varun, who has priced a 20 kg sun dryer at Rs 24,000 — no less than part the cost of the ones to be had out there. Ranging from 5 kg, he has sun dryers as much as a capability of one,000 kg.
To this point, he has put in over 3,500 sun dryers within the rural and far flung farms of the rustic together with Kashmir, Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Manipur, Arunachal and Gujarat. Each and every month, the farmers are ready to per thirty days procedure 115 metric tonnes of clean produce, which might another way pass to waste, into helpful merchandise like dry powder, flakes, and toppings.
“We now have reached out to farmers in far flung spaces the place they can not get right of entry to the marketplace simply. For instance, pineapples grown in Manipur are offered at Rs 250 in keeping with piece in markets like Delhi and Mumbai. However in the neighborhood, they have got a price of Rs 5. Nonetheless, a bulk of the produce isn’t ready to succeed in the outdoor markets,” he stocks.
“So, we’re ready to assist them procedure extra produce in tribal far flung spaces and get a greater source of revenue. We now have been ready to spice up farm source of revenue via 50 p.c,” he provides.
Expanding shelf existence via a yr
Running on a self-sustainable fashion, the sun dryers don’t require energy or repairs. Within the water-resistant dryers, slices of greens are positioned and inside of two to a few days, the produce is sun-dried and able to be transformed into value-added merchandise.
For instance, sun-dried tomatoes are used to arrange oats and soups in addition to pizza toppings. Uncooked bananas are transformed into banana chips, grapes into raisins, and onions into onion flakes. Varun says, “Each and every vegetable and fruit, even a watermelon, can also be dried right into a value-added product. There may be an infinite scope and insist for such merchandise.”
Apparently, the dryer dehydrates moisture of the recent produce in this kind of means that it keeps the style, color, aroma, and vitamins of the product, he says. Now not handiest this however the shelf lifetime of perishable meals merchandise could also be larger to no less than 365 days or extra with out the usage of any components or preservatives.
Varun has partnered with no less than 170 organisations like Sahaydri Farms, PRADAN, and TATA Consider to have interaction with farmers on the grassroots stage. After putting in sun dryers, his crew trains them to transform the produce into dried merchandise.
Instead of this, he additionally helps farmers within the advertising in their dried merchandise via promoting them to their community of 200 FMCG corporations in India. On the decentralised assortment centres established in virtually each state, the dried merchandise are amassed. After high quality exams and sorting in accordance with color and measurement, the goods are sterilised and packaged to be equipped to FMCG manufacturers like Happilo and Chaayos.
“We aren’t simply promoting sun dryers, we’re construction an ecosystem the place farmers discover ways to practise this era,” says Varun, who goals to onboard 3 lakh farmers via the year-end.
“In truth, I had by no means imagined that I’d even succeed in this stage. It’s incredible as a rule that we’ve got been ready to succeed in the remotest places around the nation. Lately, I’m running on a fashion wherein I’m able to utilise papaya peels and seeds within the beauty business. And thereby assist farmers double their source of revenue,” he provides.
Edited via Pranita Bhat; All pictures courtesy: Raheja Sun Meals Processing Pvt Ltd.