Even though India stands among the largest producers of fruits and vegetables in the world, our per capita availability is low because post-harvest losses account for about 30% of total production. To preserve their shelf-life, these crops require adequate cold storage facilities. These facilities allow farmers to preserve their produce while also giving them the necessary time to sell at the right price. But establishing this sort of infrastructure requires large amounts of capital, electricity and extensive logistics.
Growing up in the village of Naya Tola Dudhela in Bhagalpur district, Bihar, Nikky Kumar Jha remembers how farmers growing horticulture crops would waste nearly a third of their produce because they didn’t have adequate storage facilities and electricity.
As part of his MSc dissertation in Ecology and Environment Studies from Nalanda University, he developed an off-grid cold storage device considering the state of electricity supply in Bihar and the post-harvest…