Identify How Engineer’s Solar Dryers Solve India’s Food Wastage & Profiting Farmers: Wondering Why Were Farmers Throwing Out Tomatoes? Are Engineer’s Solar Dryers Help Farmers Earn in Dire Times? How Helpful Are Solar Air Dryers In Indore? And many more questions on solar dryers & boosting the farmer’s income.
This is the right guide to land. Here, we have curated some information about the Indore-based Varun Raheja’s plan to help farmers boost income tomato prices. Raheja invented solar dryers that are very portable, foldable, and scalable. So, this solar dryer assists small and marginal farmers in enjoying better earnings from extra produce.
How Raheja Designed Engineer’s Solar Dryers Benefitted Farmers?
Before this year, when farmers in the region were trading tomatoes at a low price, Nitin Ramesh Dhingre from Maharashtra made a smart decision to convert fresh produce into dried products using a solar dryer.
As per the report collected by The Better India, the 38-year-old farmer explains that they were unable to even cover the cost of production when selling tomatoes for Rs 2.5 per kg, as they also had to cover the cost of harvesting and transportation to the market.
By considering this issue, Nitin started drying excess produce last December. He grows tomatoes, grapes, and onions on a five-acre land in his village Matur, and earns Rs 350/- for the same quantity he used to get Rs 50. Within five years he earned Rs 1 lakh as profit by selling excess produce. If not, that would have gone to waste.
Despite initial skepticism from other farmers, Nitin invested in a solar dryer which has now become popular among them. Nitin and 13 other farmers supported each other to install a three-tier solar dryer with the ability to dry up 500 kg of excess produce at once.
Varun Raheja has helped Nitin and other 50,000 farmers across India to acquire advantages from excess produce. That’s the reason, Varun and his mother Babita Raheja run Raheja Solar Food Processing Pvt Ltd and help farmers boost their sales and revenue without wasting food.
History Of Varun Raheja & His Invention
Varun is a mechanical graduate, who spent his 4-year college period studying farmer suicide rayes and methods to boost their earnings. He loves nature and hates wasting resources
“When I see a fruit coming out of a tree that is just dependent on soil and water, I perceive it as magic. Whenever I saw farmers throwing their produce, I would wonder about ways to preserve it so that they could sell it for a better price. I found solar dryers as a sustainable choice,” disclosed Varun.
Also, Varun has done an internship under Padma Shri Janak Palta McGilligan in his first year of college. Through that experience, he learned the benefits of solar power. At the end of his college life, he implemented the solar power technique in his solar dryer invention and supported farmers to use the waste in value-added products.
Also, Varun Raheja used all his mechanical knowledge to improvise solar dryers. Finally, he developed a foldable and portable solar dryer with different capacities that range from 20 to 100 kilos.
All About Indore-Based Engineer’s Solar Dryer – Types, Features, Achievements
Raheja’s Solar Dryer is designed in two types. The first one is foldable and portable, the second type is a fixed polyhouse design. The first type is specially designed for small and marginal farmers.
You can find this design in 40-foot-long solar dryers and it folds into a five-foot box that fits best in remote locations. You can avail of this foldable type of solar dryer at half the price from Varun stores. Also, they are available at capacity from 5 kg to 1000 kg.
- Raheja industry successfully installed more than 3,500 solar dryers so far in remote and rural farms in India.
- Mainly in the states of Kashmir, Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Manipur, Arunachal, and Gujarat.
- On a monthly basis, farmers process 115 metric tonnes of fresh produce into helpful products such as dry powder, flakes, and toppings and prevent waste.
- Also, we have successfully helped tribal remote areas farmers process the excess produce into useful ones and increased their revenue by 50%.
How To Increase The Produce Shelf Life By A Year?
By drying the fresh produce of fruits and vegetables, they preserve the product’s color, taste, aroma, and nutrients for the long run. Hence, it increases the food’s shelf life to a minimum of 1 year or more naturally with no preservatives or additives.
So, making use of solar dryers can easily dry the food and help farmers use the excess produce in a useful and healthy way.
How Do Solar Food Dryers Work?
The working of solar-based food dryers is quite simple and ancient too. All it does is collect energy from the sun and dehydrates the food and farming products such as vegetable and fruits.
On the basis of sunlight and food processing, dehydration takes time nearly 2-3 days. Moreover, Raheja’s solar dryer is pretty simple to assemble and maintain.
FAQs On Indore Solar Dryers To Rescue Farmers of Tomatoes Fields
1. Is a solar dryer available in India?
Yes, a wide range of solar dryers is available in the Indian market.
2. What is the capacity of a solar dryer?
You can find the solar dryer in different capacities like 10, 25, and 100kg. These capacities are used for drying out fruits, vegetables, herbal medicines, etc.
3. What is the cost of a solar dryer?
The cost of a solar dryer starts from 5K and goes up to 40 lakhs based on various factors such as capacity, brand, quality, operating temperature, etc.
4. Which sheet is used for solar dryers?
The solar dryer is made with a “Polycarbonate Sheet” which bears high pressure and high temperature. Also, this type of plastic sheet can permit you to dry agricultural items without any gas or electricity.
Conclusion
In the end, we would suggest every farmer use Raheja’s designed solar food dryers and use the excess food into value-added food products and put a dot to food wastage problems in Inida. Every year, you can witness the market growth for dry products so cut down the food wastage and increase your earnings.
Do look at our other articles on agriculture and framing like How CultYvate Agri-tech Solution Helps Paddy Farmers Reduce Water Waste, Govt’s Arka Rakshak Scheme To Bring Relief To Farmers From Rice Diseases, etc.