In the past year, farmers-members of Sahyadri Farms FPC in Nashik produced five tonnes of raisins from fresh grapes, two tonnes of dry tomato strips and ten tonnes of dry onion using solar dryers. This saved farmers from price volatility and helped consumers to get the produce when prices of fresh produce spiralled up. Not surprisingly, more and more farmers now want to install solar dryers, Sahyadri Farms said in a press release.

Solar dryers remove moisture from the produce like fruits and vegetables. The heat generated within the system evaporates the moisture and increases the shelf-life of the produce.  

Vilas Shinde, founder and chairman of Sahyadri Farms, says both options — fresh marketing and processing — must be available for farmers and consumers. “With the co-operation of Sustain Plus, we launched the pilot solar project under which solar pumps and solar dryers were installed. The value of the produce was increased and also post-harvest wastage was controlled. The parallel mechanism to the existing system could be developed using this method to tackle the drop of agri product prices in the market” he added in a press statement.

Sahyadri Farms and Sustain Plus (Tata Trust initiative) launched the pilot solar dryer project last year and installed 20 solar dryers of 500 kg capacity. Sustain Plus provided 65 per cent of financial support per dryer which is about ₹20 lakh and farmers contributed 35 per cent share. Raheja Solar Food Processing Private Limited installed these solar dryers in Nashik and also trained farmers.      

Mahendra Surwade, a farmer from Dindori in Nashik said that he received handsome returns for the processed grapes. “I could produce good quality raisins because of the solar dryers and added value to my product. As a result, I got a good price in the market and also I found a new way to get income” he said.    

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